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GSKy Plant Systems and Green Walls

(Released on September 1)
  About The Everything Building Envelope Podcast: Everything Building Envelope℠ is a dedicated podcast and video forum for understanding the building envelope. Our podcast series discusses current trends and issues that contractors, developers and building

 

About The Everything Building Envelope Podcast: Everything Building Envelope℠ is a dedicated podcast and video forum for understanding the building envelope. Our podcast series discusses current trends and issues that contractors, developers and building owners have to deal with related to pre and post construction. Our series touches on various topics related to water infiltration, litigation and construction methods related to the building envelope.

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Paul: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Everything Building Envelope podcast. This is Paul Beers. We have a really interesting guest today, Debbie Kotalic, and she’s with GSky Plant Systems. And this is a hot topic. We’re running into green walls a lot now and big thing in the industry. So, I think this is gonna be of great interest to everybody. So, welcome, Debbie.

Debbie: Thank you.

Paul: Really excited to be talking about this today. But before we get into it, could you just please tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?

Debbie: I appreciate you having me here today. And I am a landscape designer. I’ve been doing it for about 30 years now, gave away my age. But I have been working in the field, in nurseries and landscape design, built a company. And then I saw the green wall technology, was interested in it about 10 years ago, but it was very new. And when they asked me to come onboard and work with them and do some design work, the company was new. I decided to give it a try, and I’m hooked. So, now, I do this full time. So, what I do with GSky, but I do the design work with the plant material and with the systems. So, that’s what I do.

Paul: So, I don’t know about 10 years ago, but it’s definitely cutting edge right now. In fact, I know we met you at the AIA show in Orlando a few months back. And architects and designers and owners love the concept of green walls for a lot of reasons. It brings texture to different material, it’s very current and very relevant. Your company is GSky Plant System. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that, as well.

Debbie: Okay. What GSky Plant Systems…I don’t know. Probably years and years ago, people would encourage ivy or grow different things to grow up walls. And what they found was it might look nice but it costs a lot of damage to buildings. So, we have developed systems that can attach to buildings or freestanding structures to give the same effect. And we’re a leading provider of the vertical living green walls in North America, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East, and we’re still expanding. But what we have found is one system does not fit every need. So, we have developed four different systems, three different for the exterior and one for an interior system.

Currently, we have over 500 walls, either under contract or they have been installed. And in 2015, we broke our record, installed over 100 walls one calendar year. So, the business is growing fast. We’re doing a lot of different things, but it’s the systems and it’s the knowledge that we have to back the systems because we also do the installations. But that is basically what GSky Plant Systems is.

Paul: So, I was really interested when you agreed to come on as a guest, and I was looking at the GSky website. What is the web address, in case anybody wants to take a look while they’re listening?

Debbie: It’s gsky.com.

Paul: Yeah, it’s really interesting and it’s got a lot of project examples and what not. And I was very interested to see that our firm, GCI Consultants, has worked on several projects with the GSky system. They’re in your project portfolio. And we’ve got other ones that we’re working on now, some big ones. We’re seeing more and more, I guess, is what I’m trying to say. What are some of the benefits of green walls?

Debbie: I mean, some of the benefits…a lot of municipalities, a lot of places now are requiring so much green in a space and they can do it in a park form, they can do it in areas in their lobby, having large expanses of green. But they found that they can’t lease that, they can’t make money from that, and if they put it on a wall, we’ll account for that. But it helps take away a lot of the urban jungle, as far as the concrete jungle look and affect in.

Benefits are not only visual because it’s very calming, but they’re also artistic. They can be a focal point. They help in air quality, especially for interiors, cooling, and installing. If you go near one of the larger walls, if you walk near it, you can feel the temperature go down there. But they increase employee morale, patient morale, if you’re doing it in medical settings. They increase property values, and we’re finding a lot of developers are requesting green walls for large redos of projects, if it’s not a brand new project, because they want to attract people with the tenants, and people love the green walls. So, they’re finding the real estate industry is saying that it has increased their property values.

It’s a really good branding tool, also. We have a lot of corporate clients who are using green walls for different things and they have the branding in that it can either be in the plant design or it’s just that they have a green wall, that they have certain expectations and certain things that they want. But it’s a great recruiting tool for anybody who hires millennials, or who wants millennials as clients, because they love the green walls. And another big thing, I think, of benefit for green walls is you have a lot of people, such as yourself, who are designing things and who are installing, etc., and the lead points, etc., are a big thing as far as the buildings and having green initiatives and doing that type of thing.

I found a lot of times in talking with people is, you know, the green walls will help toward their points. They don’t have a category, per se, for that, but it does help toward the points. But when the employees or when different people see a green wall on the property, even though they have used green technology in the carpets or the wall coverings or the roof, etc., which is great, a lot of times, the employees or people don’t realize that it’s a green initiative type thing. But when they see the wall, they realize it, and that gives them a chance to start talking about that and start making people aware of the other things that are there in the environment, etc.

So, they do a lot of things as far as cover. A lot of places are now requiring, municipalities are requiring, especially parking garages, for people who are doing developments, they can’t get the permits even until they have come up with some type of facade for the parking garages or for different parts of buildings and areas, and we came up with a system. One of our systems is built just for that because it can cover that in a vine material within a year that it’s going in. Especially in the southern region, it may take up to two years to fully cover one at north. But they’re requiring that they do that in order to get permits. So, there’s been a lot of want and a lot of need for the green walls so that they take away that concrete jungle. That’s a big part of it. Schools are a big thing, too.

Paul: The parking garage is something that architects and designers really like to do. Like we had a big project we’re working on that had…there was like a six-story parking garage. This hasn’t been built yet, and in fact, it’s a redesign, not because of the green wall, but because the building was too tall for the city. I can’t imagine that, being a guy that loves high-rises, by the way. But the original concept was there was actually a historic church right in front of this property, they had a parking garage, and they were putting a green wall application over the entire front of this garage, which was taller than the church actually. And really, the concept was it was gonna frame it out really nicely. When you look at the church, you would see this, all this green behind it instead of a large high-rise.

And the other thing I was just thinking about when you were talking about the different applications is we had our company meeting last weekend. And right outside the conference room was a small piece of green wall, and you talked about branding, what was the logo of the property that we were at, it looked really good. You know, it had texture and color, really pretty sharp.

Debbie: Well, I mean, one of the products that we have developed, which is our Basic Wall product, it’s a vine container system, like I said. Well, we only expect our vines to grow five feet because they have been developed to stack upon on top of each other going up the wall. You can’t see them because they’re on the inside, but the plants are directly into that, they stay in their system. It’s all irrigated. Of course, maintenance is a big part of it. One of our big things, as far as GSky goes, is that we not only develop and install the project, design the projects, but we also ensure that the maintenance is done properly. Without maintenance, I mean, you can put in, you can plant a plant in the ground and think it’s going to grow 30 feet, maybe.

But without being in good soil, having good irrigation, and being trimmed and trained to grow trellis, a lot of times, I think, that municipalities have found it didn’t work. And so, they are specking and saying that they have to use this type of system in order to give the permits and, etc., to give the okay to some of the developers.

We’re doing several projects in Highland Beach. I know we just finished one not long ago. It’s a very large wall. But when it goes in, it’s already pretty full, especially if they give us enough time to grow it down south. It was full within three or four months of it going in the whole entire wall. So, it’s not like we’re planting something and hoping it grows 20 or 30 feet. We plant, we put it on, and we know it will because it’s already done it. We’re just taking care of it now.

Paul: Is there any point in time in the lifespan of one of these green sky systems where the plants have to be redone, or can maintenance give them kind of an indefinite period?

Debbie: Right. It depends on the system that is being used and where it’s at and it depends on how good the maintenance has been. And what we do, as far as I say, we do the maintenance, we subcontract local people to do the maintenance. We train them and then they report to us. They have to send us pictures, they have to send us reports every two weeks, and we work with them and support them.

But just like any landscaping that has been done on the exterior, if plants haven’t been pruned properly, if they haven’t been given proper nutrition, if they weren’t planned properly, that they put plants that need to be in the shade, in the sun or vice versa, etc., or they don’t know what a good plant that will work vertically is, because a lot of times a plant that you plant in the ground and it’s used to growing straight up, now you’ve turn it on its side, and now, is that plant going to be very geotropic, is it going to turn up, is it going to turn down, or is it going to do what you want it to do?

So you have to know what the plants are that you’re using and where they go, because that’s a very important part of it. But we have found that our plants are doing very, very well, especially on the Basic Wall because those are growing straight up, as they would normally from the ground. They’re just growing up on the trellis. As long as those are kept fertilized and healthy, every year or so they may have to put a little more dirt in it, the technology is still…green wall technology, as far as they go, is still fairly new. But we are having great success with it.

With our interior walls, which is our Versa product, which is totally different… We came up with a different product for interiors because we had the panelized system, which is our Pro Wall, where you put liners in it and grow it out at the nursery, and then hang it on the wall. And it’s very good and we do use it a lot, especially for high wind areas, etc. But for the interior, we found plants didn’t have the opportunity to dry out with that type of system, because inside, outside… I’m sorry, outside, when you irrigate it, you’re wanting it to not dry out too quickly inside. So, therefore, we use materials that would absorb water and hold it. On the interior, if you have something that’s spongy or something that holds water, you don’t have wind, etc., inside. And those plants and the roots would never get a chance to dry. And then, you start having root rot, you start having funguses and that, and everything else.

So we came up with a system that’s…it’s patented, it’s a pot-tray system where each pot just goes…it’s a four-inch planted pot that sits right in the tray. They’re all engineered to fit right into the tray, normal four-inch planted pots. And it’s watered from the back, when the irrigation down to the system, and it’s very hard to describe this verbally. You can see it on the website, and we have CAD drawings and everything on the website. But the water is then leaked from the back of the pot. We water about every 10 to 12 days, depending on what the plant needs are and the environments inside. And then the plant is allowed to dry, and that’s what plants need. Most plants don’t want to stay wet all the time. So, we’ve found that that does very well, that is in a four-inch pot. People have questioned, how long would that plant last, and what we have been finding…

We tell people to, you know, and that’s part of our maintenance contract is, you know, we do plant replacement. We’re doing very little plant replacements and this system has been in effect for four to five years now, very little plant replacements as long as maintenance companies maintain them properly and they have the right environment. The lighting has been put in properly, lighting is very key for interior projects. Without good lighting, you’re replacing plants more often.

With the Pro Walls, which is the panelized system, which is outside, again, maintenance is a critical factor. Where we find we have to do the most replacements for an exterior wall like that is if, again, we have some projects where they say it’s full sun, it’s full west or south facing sun, it gets no shade, there’s nothing there to shade it, there’s no big building across the street, and then they’ll put some big trees in. And so, now, you’ve got the wrong plant in that site and the plant has to be changed out periodically. But that is part of the maintenance contracts, etc.

Now, we have come up with a system called our Versa XT, which is an exterior product, this is also just using one gallon pots that goes into a pot and a tray system. And that makes it very easy for northern climates who want green walls and you don’t want a panelized system up there because it’s too hard to make the replacements and have it look good. And they expends out waste that they gain for. But with this one-gallon XT product that is fairly new, we tested it in up above Vancouver, at Simon Fraser University, on a huge wall, it did great throughout the winter, grows, came back. And if you do need to make a replacement, you just pick up one pot and throw another pot in that’s full immediately. So that’s a big benefit with that. Because we have people in northern climates who want green walls and we try not to put them where we don’t think they’ll do well.

We can put a Versa XT almost anywhere, as long as they know, if it just is so cold, if you have an unusually cold winter or somebody in Vale want one out, I can put in a green wall there. It’s an annual green wall. So, you are going to have to replace the plants every year because they’re up in their own side of the building. They’re not down in the ground. They’re not insulated like they would be in the ground. They’re up on the side of a building, wind’s blowing through, etc., and a lot of times, people think, they’ll say, “I want a green wall,” and you’ll say, “Well, what’s it facing?” “It was north facing and it’s up in like zone four and it’s everything else.” I’m like, “Well, what else lives there throughout the winter?” “Nothing.” Well, these aren’t magic plants.

So, it’s just…the planning of the whole thing is a key. You got to plan it correctly. You got to take, you know… You have to have people who are knowledgeable in planning the walls and how they go in. But the plants do very well, as long as they’re maintained well, just like plants would in the ground.

Paul: Yeah, I never realized there’s so much that go into it. So, you know, so we’re Building Envelope experts but we’re certainly not plant experts. In fact, I have a hard time growing flowers in my front yard sometimes. So, really interesting to hear, you know. And think about it, it makes sense. All the consideration, particularly with varied climates. And, you know, obviously, Vale is much, much, much different than Miami, and, you know, and even much, much, much different, I would assume, than Vancouver.

Debbie: Absolutely, absolutely.

Paul: You had mentioned retrofit, you know, that the people going and they remodel, they…you know, that’s one of the things that they desire to do. So, I was talking to an architect a few weeks ago about a project, where they were interested in the green wall, and the architect was asking me, do you have to do anything special to the wall to accommodate these systems? She was asking me, “Do I need that double wall? Do I need, you know…what do I need to do?” Could you talk a little bit about, you know, what needs to happen behind the wall, as far as what needs to be provided?

Debbie: I can talk a little bit about it. Our project and structural designers take care of that much more than I do, but I do know that depending on the wall and the interior of a wall, we’re doing our Versa Wall, which is, they have a plywood that they put up. There are a lot of times, people are very worried about moisture and moisture barriers, etc. I know that we tell people they can put up the marine-grade plywood. Again, I know a lot about it. I may give you a few wrong things on this.

Paul: Yeah, you know what, I didn’t want to get too technical. So, what I was trying to get at was, you know, that, you know, I don’t know if this is true enough, but there’s not a lot of special preparation needed to accommodate the system, you know. Like you put your water-proofing up and then…

Debbie: Right.

Paul: System.

Debbie: And I think…they think with retrofitting especially is the water source, what’s the water source going to be. Small wall, we have systems that have a cabinet built into it, that tanks can be put under, maintenance can fill the tanks, and the water can go, can be pumped up and can water it. If it’s a really large wall that’s really not efficient, they need to have water source direct feed to the wall to water it. There can be, at that point, some projects want to recycle the water. With our system, for interior, there’s not a lot of recycling because it waters and the plants absorb that, and there’s no water really wasted. But we still say there has to at least be a drain at the bottom or recycling tanks, just in case somebody leave something on, or valve get stuck on, etc., so that the water can be taken care of in that way. But you have to have things that all walls need to have. And even if it’s a retrofit, you have to think about all walls need a water source of some sort.

There are some that’s not real big that people do hand-watering. Again, I would not suggest it for large wall, but for something smaller, that can be done. But with our Versa Wall, automated irrigation is so simple. That’s not really necessary. There has to be electric available for the pumps.

Lighting is key for an interior wall also. There have to have the proper lighting, and a lot of times, we think, “Oh, I don’t want this bright, bright lights. It’s going to be a lobby that’s supposed to be restful.” As far as the lighting being obtrusive to everybody in the lobby, that’s not true. It’s just washed on the wall, it’s as if you put a picture on a light. But it has to be the proper type of lighting. And now, LED…halogen lighting was what was used for a long time, LED lighting is now working very well because they can get the tone and the temperatures set correctly on that. So, lighting that is a wall wash, not a spot on the different plants. And we have several different lighting companies that we can give people references for so that they can work with a good lighting engineer or a good lighting person to get the proper fixtures on the wall, more on the ceiling to do it.

There are definite ways to do it and that’s done all the time. And if you have the right lighting on your plants, you have no problem with the plants basically because they need light in order to go through their photosynthesis, they take up energy and nutrients, etc. But lighting, electric, a drain, some type of water source, and accessibility. You have to be able to access that wall in order to maintain it. So, we have a lot of walls where, a lot of really, really big, big, tall walls, but before we do the installation, we have to make sure that there is accessibility to it, whether by means of a lift, and can you get the lift in there, and where is the lift stored, or is it rented, etc? And you know, the furniture can’t be right in front of the wall, unless it can be moved. And there’s just some things that take into consideration with that, when it’s being designed.

Paul: And it’s also funny, so some of the same problems you have on this conventional wall, you know, like window washing, the same issue. How do you get in there and do that? And I’ve seen buildings where they haven’t done a good job but that they’ve had to do maintenance and what not and, you know, it’s a nightmare. So, if you don’t have good access, and particularly for something like a living wall like this, I would think it would be a nonstarter.

Debbie: Well, it is. And there have been some walls that we’ve declined because we couldn’t do the maintenance. There was one particular project that I think you’d find interesting. It’s in Ontario, I believe, and it’s a huge wall, indoors, and they couldn’t figure out how they were going to get… Because I believe that it’s next to an elevator shaft and an escalator. And they finally came up with, and because they couldn’t get the lighting to work out because it was so tall, and there are offices coming off of each floor that’s open to this reception area, and it’s a big mall, really. And so, they couldn’t get the lighting to come out because it would blind people and they couldn’t be able to do so.

Finally, it was engineered so that the wall is hung, and on this wall… It’s on the Yonge-Englinton project. On the wall, they have built-in, there’s a structure built on to the sides of the wall which house the lighting that will come out and wash the wall, but it also is framed so that window washing system can power up and down that same frame to be able to do the maintenance. So, they figured it out.

Paul: Wow.

Debbie: Yeah, it’s really nice.

Paul: That’s really impressive. So, what are some of the trends that you’re seeing of late in the green wall industry?

Debbie: A lot of trend I’m seeing now is, well, again, like I said before, anything that has to do with millennials, millennials love it. But reception areas and entry spaces, especially in large corporate offices, and I see in large attorney offices, and just any of them, where they used to have a big reception desk and then they have chairs in places, and they have plants just sitting around, etc., they’re using that more for communal spaces and not a reception desk. They have board tables, they have board rooms, etc., and like I said, their gathering spaces, their event spaces, their photo op spaces, and we’re doing a lot of huge walls in those areas.

Stairways are another big one. We’re doing a lot of things that people are designing large staircases into a lot of these offices, into a lot of projects, and especially colleges, etc. They’re promoting wellness and promoting health, and using the stairs, etc., and it makes it feel more like they’re hiking in the forest, I guess. They’re walking along…

Paul: More natural.

Debbie: Yeah, it’s much more natural, it’s cooler near the wall, and it’s a lifestyle type thing. And we’re seeing that a lot with the stairways. Tech companies are huge. They’re using walls a lot now. Again, they’re recruiting millennials, and that’s who… And I know, I’ve given lectures at colleges and I’ve been at different things where they have had design contests, etc. Very few big projects I see them designing are without a green wall of some sort in there. They are very much into the health. They are very much into everything that it represents.

Airports are another big place I’m finding them. We’re doing them. Airports have known, they wanna make it a little friendlier. They wanna make the…and not so stressful. When you’re sitting there and your flight’s been cancelled for the third time, they have big green walls in these airports now, where people walking by them or they’re near, where large areas are, eating areas, etc., they’re putting in a lot of that, the green walls in.

Hotel lobbies are huge for green walls. We’re finding that a lot. The medical facilities. We put a large one in at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and in several others, too. Medical facilities, not only for the patients but for the families. Some of them are in like surgery waiting areas and emergency room areas, but they’re also in different areas where employees can go for a break or take or relax some, and it’s calming for them. So, it’s not only for the patients, but it’s for everybody involved in the hospital stay and care on that.

So, another big trend I’ve seen with green walls and what I would like to incorporate more is incorporating other things into them such as wood and metal, glass, and things of interest. We’ve done some walls that people have wanted that they had collected ruins or artifacts, etc., and we incorporated those into the walls. I think it makes them very interesting to incorporate other things into them sometimes. You have some type of glass thing, whether it’s a logo, whether it’s just some other form of some sort and have some back lighting on it, it makes it very interesting in walls too. And we’ve done several walls where there are waterfalls in between, where you have a wall that’ll have a waterfall in the middle of it. Somewhat, we don’t do the waterfall, but we design the walls around the waterfalls. So, there’s a lot of people wanting things like that.

Paul: Really funny that you bring that up because I just looked at a project that we’re hoping to get involved with in the Caribbean, like two weeks ago, and we checked all the boxes you just said. It was a hotel and it had a water feature, and it had like, on the entrance to the hotel, which was open air, there was a green wall that was kind of on the front face on both sides of the entry and then wrapped into the building, and it incorporated not just the plant material but it had like wood and stone elements mixed into it. So they’re really into having different materials, different textures, changing plains and surfaces. And as the architect was showing it to me, I told her, I said, “Wow, this is really nice looking, and I had not seen something that well-thought-out and that intricate before, but it look great.”

Debbie: Yeah, and they do. It’s in the planning that work out really well. And the things that…some of the things that make for a really successful wall so that it is long-time, of course, is your system, the type of system you are using, whether it works well in getting the water to the places where it needs to be and use the right type of system. Like I said, I don’t think one system fits every aspect. So, I think that using the right system is huge in making that for a successful green wall. One of the things that we work very hard on is the design, not only in the shop drawings, we coordinate it. We have our professional installers who do the installing. I work with the plant design and procurement. One of the things that people don’t realize a lot of times, an installer, especially our GCs, I work with them quite frequently on is that whenever it’s time to install a wall and we have a large wall coming in, we have to source the plant material.

Now, I’m not sourcing three dozen plants on some of these walls. I have 16,000 plants on it. And the nursery industry, the way that it is now, we have to plan for this ahead of time a lot of times now. Not always, I can get some of them sometimes, but when it’s time to put a wall in, I need realistic install dates. I know what you want, I know what you guys have told the client, I need realistic. Because it’s not like I’m sending a box of nails that you can set on a shelf somewhere and wait until you can go ahead and finish putting it in. When those plants come, they have to be able to go in the wall and all the conditions have to be right. So, I always tell people, “The plants go in the wall when the furniture’s ready to come into the building.”

Paul: Yeah, we hear about “Just in Time” delivery with factories and what not. Probably the case here, isn’t it, where you’ve got to show up at the right time or it’s not gonna work.

Debbie: Exactly. You can have your construction dust, you can have people who are turning the power off to do other things and doesn’t get turned back on. I mean, there’s a lot of planning that goes into it because we do this all the time. We know how to work with people to get it done, and they get it done properly. And installation is a huge thing. You have our project managers that are on the site. Smaller ones, we have certified dealers who can do some of our interior scapers who are into your projects, who have been trained and who can do those now. But for a large, exterior thing, we have our supervisors on site for that and working with people. Because again, logistics is a big thing. The lifts, safety, everything that goes with that, and working with the GCs on that.

And so, you know, as long as it’s planned and everybody knows it ahead of time, and we’ve been working with them, our project managers working with the GC for several months usually before it goes in, and as long as we’re getting good information, this thing can go up and be very painless. So, for all the other people, all the other ancillary people working on it, we just have to make sure that the contract is, as far as the plumbing is there, the lighting is there, and installed, we can’t wait until we get there and then have them do that because these plants have to be watered. So…

Paul: Yeah, lots of parts and pieces.

Debbie: Lots of it. And then, I think the biggest part of all in having a really successful green wall besides the designing is the maintenance. We warranty any plant replacements, as long as we have the maintenance contracts, and that is making sure that the people are doing the maintenance properly, it’s being done when it should be and pruned, done regular checkups, the reports go to the owners, etc. But maintenance, I can’t stress enough how important maintenance is with the green wall because they’re a living plant. It’s not an inanimate object that you can put it up and it’s a painting and it never changes. And that’s one of the nice things about the green wall is that people find very interesting is watching them change and watching the metamorphosis of the wall and watching how it changes as time goes on.

Now, when we put them in, they’re fairly full to begin with, but they still go through some changes. There’s pruning, there’s different things, and with the interior, or exterior, it grows a lot more. But there’s a lot of excitement around the green wall and I encourage anybody who’s never been, especially a larger wall, who’s never been on an install, where they’ve been putting a larger wall in as it goes in, just to watch the other people around, they’re all amazed. And that’s a lot of fun.

Paul: Yeah, well, you know, this is definitely, we talk about trendy. This is definitely trendy. I know you guys have been doing this for a long time and you probably doesn’t seem like that to you. But it’s really, really catching on. And as I say, you know, we see more and more of it, and it looks great. It’s just that really, really nice feature from the typical stuff you see in buildings.

Debbie: And one of our things that we’re very adamant about and we have worked very hard in bringing the industry to where…help in bringing the industry to where it is is we don’t let a wall fail. I mean, unless people just don’t let you take care of it after it’s gone in, and that does happen once in a while. You know, they’ll say, “Well, we don’t need maintenance.” And, you know, as much as you try, but we don’t let a wall fail, as far as if there’s a problem, we’re right back there working on it and doing what needs to be done. One of the things that we also have done is through AEC Daily. We have an online continuing education program that architects and interior designers, etc., can take and get their CEU credits, but it gives a lot more information on the walls. They can get it online and things that they need to think of when designing them, etc.

Paul: And they can… And if anybody wants information on that, they can find it at gsky.com?

Debbie: Yes, yes. If they go in gsky.com, there’s a link that goes right to the AEC Daily.

Paul: Great.

Debbie: Continuing ed. It’s free.

Paul: Even better.

Debbie: Very well.

Paul: So, this has been really interesting and I thank you so much. And I know there’s big, big interest in this and it seems like it’s growing more and more. And it’s really interesting for me personally to hear about all of the intricacy and all the parts and pieces and everything that has to come together. So, thank you very much for coming on today and telling us about it.

Debbie: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I know, I feel a little scattered with it because there’s just so much information. You can have five or six different talks on this thing and different categories. But I’ve just given you a little brief highlight on some of it there. There’s a lot of intricacy with it, but I think it’s well worth it. People love it. And we just, we have the experience and the knowledge to do it and to do it right, and that takes planning.

Paul: So, maybe we’ll do a follow-up episode just to open the door for them. Again, I know there is, right.

Debbie: Well, I could bring more of our Building Envelope people in, too, that could probably answer questions for you much more about the load bearing on the walls and different things like that, too, that will probably something that the people will probably benefit from.

Paul: Yeah, a little more technical. May not be as much fun as talking to them on the phone.

Debbie: That’s right, I do the fun stuff.

Paul: Well, again, thank you very much for coming on.

Debbie: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Paul: And I’d like to thank everyone for listening to the Everything Building Envelope podcast, where, when you listen to this episode, we’re gonna be in the 30s with the number of episodes. You wanna check out some of the other ones, please visit www.everythingbuildingenvelope.com. Please tell your friends and buddy who would like to subscribe, can do so on iTunes or Stitcher. Until next time, this is Paul Beers saying, “So long.”

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