“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 building business. That is where this chat with Jessica Kismet from Climasure, host of the Building Sciology Podcast, really goes.

Jessica jumps in as guest host and asks the questions builders usually keep to themselves. Money pressure. Risk. Ego. Family. The emotional load of running a residential construction business in Australia, especially when the market is tight and the margin for error is small. If you are a builder, contractor, or tradie trying to stay steady through uncertainty, this episode will feel very familiar.

We talk openly about the financial tightrope and what it means to actually know your numbers. Builder margins, overheads, pricing, and the real cost of delays are not optional knowledge anymore. Post-COVID, “she’ll be right” is not a strategy. This conversation gets into the learning curve, the mistakes, and the shift from running on instinct to running a more sustainable construction business that can last.

We also get into bigger industry questions. Would we encourage our kids to become builders? Who is the real villain in the building industry, from legislation to contracts to banks and insurance? How do you set boundaries with clients, protect your process, and avoid the compromises that come back to bite you later? And we finish on the long game of building science, where better outcomes depend on builders, architects, and designers understanding the whole system, not just their part of it.

👇 CHAPTER MARKERS 👇

00:00 Introduction

01:07 Passive House Display Tour

02:34 Financial Edge Stories

07:02 Learning Business Basics

11:31 AI As A Coach

13:02 Would You Encourage Kids

16:10 Training Paths And Overwhelm

20:12 Industry Villains And Red Tape

29:56 Midlife Balance And Mortality

32:16 Matt On Not Caring

40:20 Client From Hell Stories