Mindful Builder

“Can AI do this?” Adam Antony of Veo Building Co and WunderOps returns for part two of the conversation to break down how a builder, not a developer, is using AI to run a more profitable and less stressful construction business. We take a look at some of the bigger questions we all have first: Is AI going to replace builders, why on-site trades are some of the safest jobs going, and what AI still...

“I had no idea about business.” Adam Antony says it plainly, and it lands because it’s honest. In this episode of The Mindful Builder, Adam breaks down the hard lessons that hit when you go from being a great carpenter to running a building business, where margin, cash flow, quoting, and systems matter just as much as what happens on site. If you’re a builder, carpenter, or construction business o...

“I couldn’t unsee it.” Jimmy from June Building explains how Passive House building science finally clicked, after learning through Instagram and then winning the Pro Clima Passive House Tradesperson scholarship. Today Jimmy flips the format and turns up with a notebook full of questions on Passive House for us. Questions around high-performance homes, airtightness, mechanical ventilation, and wha...

You can’t build ten versions of the same house, live in them for ten years, and then pick the best one. We’re sitting down with thermal modelling specialist Cameron Munro to talk about why “model early and model often” should be a non-negotiable part of pre-construction, whether you’re chasing Passive House or just trying to build a home that actually feels good to live in. We explain what modelli...

“At some point, someone’s paying for that tender.” Tendering sounds fair on paper. Same drawings, three builders, pick the best price, move on. But once you understand what it actually costs to price a job properly, and how tendering rewards omissions, risk loading, and variations, it starts to look less like a “market test” and more like a costly way to kick off a relationship. In this episode, H...

Good design isn’t something you look at. It’s something you live in. We sit down with James Goodlet from Altereco Design to talk about what “good design” actually means in the real world, and what a proper pre-construction process looks like when it’s done properly. We get into why comfort is more than temperature, how designers extract the details that shape the lived experience, and why due dili...

A proper site visit isn’t a stroll around the block. It’s where you catch the stuff that turns into $30k surprises later. We’re back with Brad from Sanford Buildco to have a conversation about what a site visit should actually involve, and why doing it properly is one of the simplest ways to protect your time, your margin, and your sanity. We break down how our checklists differ across inner-city...

“There’s no such thing as a quick estimate.” Estimating is one of the biggest parts of pre-construction, and it is also where builders lose time, money, and trust when the process is loose. We sit down with Rick Hughes from Estimating Online to take a look at why the idea of a “quick estimate” is often the start of bigger problems later. Rick breaks estimating into a four-step process, from the gu...

“Budget does not mean your build cost.” Matt drops that early, and it should be printed on every set of concept plans. In this episode of The Mindful Builder Podcast, Matt and Hamish sit down with Brad McEwan from Sanford Buildco for a blunt chat about project feasibility and why so many custom home builds in Australia blow out financially. If you’re a homeowner, builder, or designer trying to avo...

“If you keep ending up with bad clients, that’s a you problem.” Matt doesn’t sugar coat it, and honestly, he’s right. In this episode we kick off our pre-construction series by talking about the building clients we refuse to work with, and why picking your client is one of the biggest risk controls in a construction business. This is a practical chat for builders, tradies, architects, and homeowne...

"How rock bottom do you have to let me hit before you actually help me?" Brad McEwan’s words hung in the air after we wrapped, because they’re all too familiar in the building industry. In this episode, we go past the surface stuff and talk honestly about what it looks like when you’ve been carrying it all, hoping someone will notice, and then realising you’re running out of road. From the outside...

In this episode, Joel (Heidi Build) hijacks the mic for an unfiltered conversation about the realities of building in Australia. We break down why builders can feel “owned” by a client for years after a contract is signed, how viral “circus build” videos damage trust in the whole industry, and the difference between educating and selling when builders share their work on social media. We also get...

If you’ve ever wondered why Australian homes feel freezing in winter and brutal in summer, this episode makes it painfully clear. “Suppliers in Australia are still delivering single-glazed aluminium windows,” and that one sentence explains a lot about comfort, energy bills, condensation, and why so many people feel worn down inside their own homes. We sit down with Monika Rogers from Eco Sky Windo...

In this episode, we sit down with Joel from Heidi Build and Andrew “Hoppo” from Hoppo Construction for a no-script, no-agenda chat. It starts with what makes tradie creators actually work online: being approachable, having an opinion, and showing up as yourself. Joel breaks down why the polished, curated Instagram approach did nothing for him, then the one raw timber-quality rant that finally cut...

James Turner from JTurner Constructions didn’t plan to start a building business. A torn ACL and a forced shift into subbie life pushed him into it, and he built the company the way most builders do: decks, renos, extensions, then new homes. Two and a bit years ago, he was ready to pull the pin. Bad estimating, people management gaps, COVID losses, and the mental load stacked up fast. A turning po...

“The difference between a good businessman and a bad businessman is the good one fails and learns.” A tradie builds momentum fast. Makes money fast. Spends it faster. Learns the hard way about GST, tax, super, and the cost of looking like you’ve “made it”. Then the pressure stacks up, burnout hits, and the whole thing starts to wobble. Andrew Hopkins (Hoppo from Hopkins Construction) walks through...

“You’re at the mercy of the quality of the 2D plans.” We sit down with Tom from Vision 2 Estimating (V2E) to talk about why traditional construction estimating and 2D-only take-offs are costing builders real money. If you’re quoting off PDFs, squinting at elevations, and hoping the details sort themselves out on site, this conversation will hit. It’s about accurate building estimates , protecting...

“If you can’t hit 0.6 ACH on a brand-new build, you probably shouldn’t be building.” Let’s stop tip-toeing around the reality of the Australian housing market. We are throwing up volume-built boxes and high-density apartments that are practically end-of-life before they’ve even seen their first winter. We sat down with Linden Thorley, architect, Passive House designer, and chair of the Australian...

“On paper, six or seven competitive builders trying to run one organisation together makes no sense.” In this episode, we sit down with Bec Kempster, the brilliant Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA), to talk about the messy, necessary business of upgrading the Australian construction sector. Recording from Matt’s newly completed Grand Designs home, we strip ba...

“Money turns to water.” In this episode, we sit down with Dave from Pro Clima (Technical Innovation Engineer) to talk about the real transition from being on the tools to quoting jobs, running projects, and trying to keep cash flow under control. Dave’s story is a good one. He started as a carpenter , spent years in the trade, then went back to uni and completed a Bachelor of Applied Physics befor...

In this episode, we sit down with Jackson from Enduro Builders in Adelaide to talk high performance homes , energy efficient construction , and what it actually takes to build houses that perform year after year. We recorded inside a Passive House , and once you feel that level of comfort and stability, it’s hard to accept what “normal” housing has been getting away with. Jackson has been building...

“Do we want 1.2 million crappy houses?” That’s the question Jesse Clark (pro clima) drops early in this episode, and it pretty much sets the tone. We talk about Australian housing supply, building quality, and why “more homes” is not the win if we’re locking in mould risk, discomfort, and expensive fixes for decades. If you care about better homes, healthier homes, and what the future of construct...

We do not usually have politicians on the show, so sitting down with David Southwick , the Planning, Building, and Construction Minister for the Liberal Party’s Shadow government, made for a very different kind of conversation. Less product talk and site detail, more housing policy , building regulation , and the decisions that shape what builders can actually do on the ground. If you work in the...

“I don’t understand why people build houses like this.” If you have ever said that on site after spotting a leaky junction, a sweaty wall, or a home that is freezing in winter and cooking in summer, you are not alone. This conversation is our pushback against the shortcuts that have become normal in the Australian building industry . The whole point of More Good and Less Bad is simple. Build bette...

“As builders, you have huge overheads. Massive.” Matt said it mid-conversation and it just sat there, because it is the part people outside the construction industry rarely see. They see the finished home and the invoice. They do not see the cash flow pressure, the holding costs, the insurances, the compliance, the admin load, the delays, and how quickly one wobble in the pipeline can hit a buildi...