Speaker 1 00:00:05 Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by PG t I University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host.
Speaker 1 00:00:18 We are on the Clear Impact Podcast today and it just so happens that we are being hosted by Western Windows Systems this week and they have an architectural event going on here. And so we just decided why not to see if there's some willing enabled architects that would like to come and talk to us. And lo and behold, there's three gentlemen sitting in front of me. So we we're excited about just getting to interact a little bit more with the Western brand. You know, we're a family of brands. P G T I has multiple brands, so I'll let you guys introduce yourselves and talk a little bit about your experience with Western.
Speaker 2 00:00:54 The three of us work together in a company called California Modernist Design, and we do mostly residential, some light commercial odd things like recording studios and wine tasting rooms, things like that. But the majority is beachfront houses in the Malibu area and we've been using the Western product for about seven years. We have an equal split between other manufacturers, about 50% of what ultimately gets built and about 50% Western. And we've gotten to the point where we just specify Western for the majority of the houses if there isn't a builder already involved. Mm-hmm <affirmative> or if the owner doesn't have a strong preference, we are actually calling out the Western U using the Western values in our construction documents.
Speaker 1 00:01:34 Wonderful.
Speaker 2 00:01:35 And I've been designing and building in the Malibu area, um, Pacific Palisade, Santa Monica, that western part of uh, Los Angeles for about 45 years. And California modernist designed as a new group that Frank Topia and I are working on now. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but it's basically the same group. We just need to change the focus of what we do and we'll be less involved in the permit processing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which is impossible in our neck of the woods. And in fact, it was just explained to us that someone asked our city of Malibu what the period is it takes to get a coastal development permit for new single family residents. And they pulled all the files and shared them quite willingly. And it was established that the average period of time to get from concept to building permit, if there are no extenuating circumstances with access or geology or anything else and no lawsuits is 4.7 years.
Speaker 1 00:02:26 Ooh. To
Speaker 2 00:02:27 Get your approval. But if there's complications, then it typically runs seven to 10 years to obtain your building permit for a new single family residence. So I don't like to spend too much of my time in the expediting and that's where we've just gone more in the design direction. I've been doing it for a very long time, watch this and get outta hand, but that's why there's a new company and we're specking a lot of Western product.
Speaker 1 00:02:48 Oh my gosh, that's insane. Okay. I will not complain about any of the building process <laugh> that Florida has and I thought we had complications. Wow.
Speaker 2 00:02:59 Yeah, the cost of the permit process is also insane there.
Speaker 1 00:03:03 Yeah, I would imagine. I know I took a quick look at the energy codes requirements for California when we started working on Western content and I was like, what? Like, oh my gosh, the builders in California architects, all of that. Like,
Speaker 2 00:03:17 Well, there's things you can do to balance this out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and that's where we're figuring stuff out. A very nice way to meet the Title 24 without having to make our windows smaller or have less of them. There's other things we can
Speaker 1 00:03:27 Do. Nice. Yeah. That's awesome. How about you?
Speaker 3 00:03:31 My name is Frank Tapia, so I'm co-founder and designer of California Modernist Design. Um, I started working with Vitus about 10 years ago when I was still in college. I went to school for mechanical engineering, so not architecture related, but the first industry I explored right after was Fenestration. So I've been in commercial fenestration for about five years after the fact I was working with him and then we just kind of clicked again, met up and we wanted to see where he was at with BMA vs. Modern Associates, a company that was prior to California modernist. And it just made sense that we would try to blend a few of the different things that I've been exploring and the things that we've already tried with VMA and seeing what new things we can include into our new designs and the focal point of our designs and including fenestration as a big part of that as well.
Speaker 3 00:04:14 You know, a large part of the complication that we run into is the bureaucratic portion of what we do, dealing with the city, dealing with plan checking and all of that. So I think right now we're in a like opportune part of our career with it because we can take a step back and focus on the jobs that are more design oriented and if we find jobs that aren't necessarily up our alley and and the requirements that's going to take to get it accomplished and we'll, we'll sit back on those jobs and find the ones that really highlight what we can do with the design.
Speaker 1 00:04:41 So Nice. But having an engineer background is actually really helpful as an architect to help in that space because it's highly engineered.
Speaker 3 00:04:48 Yeah, there's definitely a lot of design elements that take uh, I guess a practical angle to go about it. But definitely in design it does help to be a little bit realistic with what you're proposing as a a feasible design. So it does help. But we also do collaborate with a lot of good third party entities that are just very experienced in the area and also with design elements as well that we can collaborate with and have good relationships with almost what Western did with adjusting to the economy and having their subcontractors just close with them and being able to make adjustments with it. We also have people that work with us with our firm and they're able to provide us assistance when we need it as well.
Speaker 1 00:05:23 Excellent. How
Speaker 4 00:05:24 About you? I'm James Lucia. I took the reins when uh, Frank kind of left to go finish up his mechanical engineering degree and uh, I, I do mainly, uh, schematic design for the pages. I mean it's insane the amount of work and the efficiency that goes through the setting up the pages, make sure everything's like top notch and um, just really uh, trying to incorporate just the modeling aspect and we do 3D fly through, so being able to see the windows installed and showing the customer side like, this is your house, like this is what it will look like. It's pretty remarkable
Speaker 3 00:05:56 Especially uh, from what I've learned when Frank left the reigns to me be when he left to go like uh, meets with uh, his engineering degree. Nice. Yeah, and we were talking to a few of the reps here as well and that's another part that we're able, like conferences like this and events like this, we're able to establish those connections and relationships with people that can give us all the resources we need to demonstrate their product line and also highlight the elements of the house design that we want to highlight as well. So, you know, we appreciate being invited to this in general and thank you guys for your time.
Speaker 1 00:06:26 Yeah. So how critical is the education component in what you're doing when it comes to Windows and doors? Like where does it start? Does it start with you knowing the product and saying this is what we're gonna recommend? Or does it start with the customer just saying, Hey, I want a giant door or I want an impressive entrance or I need great access to my patio. Like explain that process to me a little bit. Be sure to tune in for upcoming episodes to help you understand the fest station industry, what you need to know when buying windows and doors and other related topics. You can find out more about
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Speaker 2 00:07:06 The process really starts with the site and the requests. So the client, and we don't do much in the way of remodels. We usually are ground up new construction and we tend to be stuck on those sites that have incredible views but are geotechnically active. So there are all sorts of limitations in terms of what is the budget for this, where is the view and how deep are the pockets and what is it they really want to do with this building? So ultimately what goes into the fest station has to do with the client's requests, but there are many other things that drive this and in terms of education process, a lot of it starts with a discussion, a dialogue with the client. So it's really a joint venture in designing the homes that we come up with. They're all one of a kind, none of them look the same.
Speaker 2 00:07:49 They're all modernist. So they have to take a look at what we have done in the past and see if that even appeals. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we assure them that what we do for them, what look like the other houses that we've done in the past and there's a learning process and then it gets down to what can we do technically and what's gonna hold the building up and how much of this can we make glass? And the next learning component is who's gonna install this stuff and do it right and get it right because of where these houses are located. We can't afford to have the typical weather failure and and other issues And, and we were just talking about a house that's an amazing precipice, a beautiful view, but the western product is delivered but not properly installed. We're convinced Frank and I that it's not what was shipped from Western. That is the problem at all. Again, it's an installer that hasn't put the stuff together Right. Hasn't shimmed it. Right. And it's a complete disaster because there are huge expanses. So you get off by a quarter of an inch on one end and here comes the learning part. You have to take the whole thing out. How badly has it been damaged? It's not the opening that's out of square, it's not the western product that's out of square, it's the installation.
Speaker 1 00:08:54 Yeah. It's a critical component.
Speaker 2 00:08:55 Yeah. So every house is a learning process start to finish.
Speaker 1 00:08:59 We see a lot of that in Florida too, where water and rain and humidity are obviously major. Right. Contenders we are not dealing with seismic regulations or you know, title 24, but we're dealing with hurricanes so Right. You know, things like
Speaker 2 00:09:12 That. We're, we're dealing with fires and what a lot of the builders don't realize is when a fire comes through the neighborhood, there's an opportunity to jump in and get to build some expensive houses and most of these guys that jump in are not qualified and there's ways to install windows in a fire zone, high severity fire zone. And there are ways that clearly are not what you would do. So most of these windows are installed with a byum membrane of some sort as a water barrier and that under no circumstances should it be a wood framed building that you're putting windows in May that ever come in contact with the wood framing because you're putting an accelerant right on something to combust that has air and then you can put a one hour fire barrier on the outside of it and it's laughable because the infrared that proceeds the fire will cause ignition inside the wall before the fire even gets there.
Speaker 2 00:09:56 So a lot of these people are not familiar and this is just like hurricane, there's a specialized way of building things and anchoring things. Right. I have one design in Florida we've never built in Florida and would love to, but we know in our little neck of the woods that the fireproof installation is really, really important. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so in the Woolsey fire, four of our buildings were in the fire. The western houses both did great. The bee manufacturer's windows, the thermal break gave out and all the glass fell out of the house before the fire got there and they've since changed the resin component they use in their window frames. And there's one house on a street right up against 80,000 acres of parkland. It's the only house that remains standing. It was fully engulfed for two whole days and the house is badly damaged but it didn't burn down. Mm. And there too, the windows were all damaged but they held up. But it's the way that they were installed that saved the building.
Speaker 1 00:10:46 Wow. Yeah. We don't deal with wildfires too much. Yeah. It's too wet.
Speaker 2 00:10:50 <laugh>, uh, we recommend that Western look into coming up with a class, a fire rated window product. Yep. Right. They really should.
Speaker 1 00:10:57 Well they've got a lot of engineers and a lot of smart people here, so I'm sure if it's possible they'll
Speaker 3 00:11:02 Do it. Yeah. Because if that was the case in a heartbeat, that's what we would spec out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in, in a lot of areas because with confidence we can say, hey, if something happens, it's rated for, it's prepared for
Speaker 2 00:11:11 That. The windows have the right look anyway. And so it is up to the client are usually the builder has some tie-ins and they want to install this other window company. They're used to for 20 years I worked with the other window company, but it's better service here and it's a better looking product and also gets down to the definition of modern because there's some windows that we really cannot specify in our houses cuz they clash with what we do.
Speaker 1 00:11:31 Right. Any other comments about
Speaker 3 00:11:33 Education? Education? Well, coming from custom commercial world, at first when I started I felt like, you know, it's just an opening, it's a window, a door can't be that complicated. Right. But some systems definitely, if you do not have that familiarity with it when it comes to installation, I feel like that's where almost everything goes. Haywired, you think you can get anybody to just install these systems and it'll just work fine and dandy you shame it wrong, you, you know, put the wrong hardware, you don't make the right adjustments, you don't read the instructions. I mean something minimal like that and you don't have the right training for it, it can make a great expensive system look like a pile of junk. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I, I definitely think education and making sure that the installers are very qualified to handle that system, whichever system we're specking is really important.
Speaker 3 00:12:15 And the same thing with us learning the system, becoming intimate with the design, learning the limitations. I know you're gonna have two worlds that catalog 80% of the business and 20% of business that custom world. Well what we do is custom, so we're probably gonna spec out those things that push the design to its limitations and knowing what those limitations are upfront help us with our design. We know we're not just giving them this idea that can never be achieved or not within budget. Right. Yeah. We, we want to have that on our side as well. So education's very important with the systems.
Speaker 1 00:12:43 Nice. Anything you'd like to
Speaker 4 00:12:44 Add? No, I mean, Frank touched it up, especially when min maxing on the pure design aspect of it, knowing the, the full capabilities of the product definitely helps bridge the gap between what the customer wants and what the window and door capabilities can be done. And then show 'em like, you know, give 'em one end of the spectrum versus the other end of the spectrum and just be like, here are your options in between and if we can MinMax all day long, but it's within our knowledge of the actual product itself. Right.
Speaker 1 00:13:12 And you know, our team was here this week videotaping some installation training, which will go on our YouTube channel, so I don't have a date on that. We're gonna do some editing and, and a little bit of that, but we'll have a couple of videos up on our channel for the Western product installation. So you guys did a pivot door and a sidelight that went with the pivot door. So couple of those products and then flashing, right? Yeah. So I wasn't here for that, but, so that'll, that'll be coming, which will be helpful, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> definitely. And then we also have an online system where we've got, uh, product knowledge training for all three of the lines for Western windows and doors on classic and performance in the simulated steel. So, so you can go in and play around with that and then we've launched certifications that go with that. So you can be like, yeah, I know everything there is to know about Western. You probably already know it. You won't even need to take the class. You can just take the exam and say I passed. Right. Awesome. Well gentlemen, I think this has been a great conversation. Thank you for your time. It was a pleasure to get to hear this side of things. I've not actually spoken to an architect on the podcast before, so to have three at once is amazing. So thank you.
Speaker 4 00:14:23 Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 00:14:25 PG t i University is the customer education team for an entire family of brands. We began with the original Ezb Breeze, porch and closure line, then became P G t, America's leading brand of impact resistant windows and doors. We then added C G I cgi, I C Window, Western Windows Systems, new South Windows, echo windows, and doors and land, windows and doors. And our latest acquisition Martin Garage doors. We create products built to withstand major storms, keeping people safe, secure, and prepared. Our exceptional brands give you the protection you need without compromising design or functionality. PPG t i University is here to educate you, our listener, so that you can be a more informed consumer of window and door products.
