UpCodes’ mission is to make building codes free for everyone
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Welcome to today's episode of Lexicon. I'm Christopher McFadden, contributing writer for Interesting Engineering. In today's episode, we're joined by Scott Reynolds, co-founder of Upcodes, to discuss the fight against building code paywalls, the ProCodes Act, and how technology is reshaping compliance.

So stay tuned for an eye-opening conversation on accessibility, transparency and the future of construction regulations. Gift yourself knowledge. IUplus is a premium subscription that unlocks exclusive access to cutting-edge stories, expert insights and breakthroughs in science, technology and innovation. Stay ahead with the knowledge that shapes the future. Scott, thanks for joining us. How are you today?

Not too bad. Thank you for having me on. Our pleasure. And for our audience's benefit, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, please? Yeah, so I come from architecture. That's my background. I studied architecture here in the US, worked abroad a little bit, and then came back and worked in New York City for a little while at Cone Piers at Fox.

So very much coming from the architecture and the domain side, but I've since segregated into the technology space, very much serving kind of the same audience. Like we sell to architects, GCs, engineers, homeowners, but now I'm very much kind of on the software side of the business.

Cool. GCs, what's that? General Contractors? Exactly. Yeah. So, and I say General Contractors, but that also includes the subs like roofers, plumbers, electricians as well. Gotcha. Okay. In that case then, so in that case, yeah, can you give us a brief overview of Upcodes and what inspired you to create it and how does it make building codes more accessible?

Yeah, so maybe I'll start with the inspiration side. So when I was working in architecture, one of the big pain points was just finding the regulations, understanding what are all the compliance requirements we need for all these projects.

It's pretty hard, right? And I'm sure like a lot of listeners may have come across this, but the regulation exists at the federal level, at the state level, the city level, and sometimes the county level. And those things can be pretty hard to manage. They can contradict one another. It's a moving target. They change over time.

And when I was working in architecture, we were just wrangling with this problem, trying to figure out, okay, where are all the codes? What's applicable to my project? And in the process, just making a lot of mistakes. It was historically a very manual process to know what's applicable to your project. So that was kind of the genesis of Upcodes, which was,

Trying to think, okay, can we bring technology to this space? Can we create guardrails and workflows that kind of structure the process of codes and compliance? And really, just to put it simply, it's

getting all this information under one roof in in one platform and so we can start to connect these things so the building code can get connected to the fire code to to the accessibility code and just making it as easy as possible for people to jump in there read and and um uh kind of yeah kind of understand the requirements around the project excellent um yeah i'm

I'm from the UK, so I'm not sure our building regulations are quite as convoluted as the US. But yeah, that can be a nightmare to navigate. So any help there, yeah, is grand, really. Yeah, and it's pretty fragmented here in the US. Like you'll see, like let's say you're working in like North Carolina or like New York. The codes will change a lot compared to California or say Washington State.

And then, of course, they change per project type. So it can be very hard working across the country and jumping into a new jurisdiction. Maybe your firm gets some work in an adjacent state or across the country. One of the barriers is just the regulation side. Like, how do the regulations change? What design is going to change based on that new jurisdiction? So it actually, there is a

fairly high degree of fragmentation across the US. Yeah, so a product like yours should, it's an overused term, but level the playing field for contractors across the country, right? Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And that's the intent. It's like, how do we break down those barriers to jumping into new jurisdiction, no matter who you are, just making it very easy to understand the codes. And there's even things like comparing codes. So you could say, okay, I'm pretty familiar with

Let's say like, like Connecticut codes, but I want to work in New Jersey. What are the differences between the two codes? And we'll do that analysis for, for the individual saying, okay, here is how New Jersey varies. This is what, this is what they've changed and this is what to, to watch out for. So yeah, it's just trying to really like increase the ease of access into these new, new markets. Fair enough. Your opinion then these differences, even subtle ones across different states, are they biased?

by design or it's just the way the nature of the things of regulation? You know, probably a little bit of both. So some by design for sure. So in California, seismic, you're dealing with more earthquakes. Yeah.

In the north, you're, you know, colder climates, you need more insulation and that's actually gets baked into the code. You know, if you're going south, you have to deal with like your cooling. And so the codes do vary by region, very kind of like intentionally so.

But then sometimes it's, you know, you get discrepancies that really perhaps like don't make a lot of sense. So like, I think it was the residential code of Massachusetts could be Connecticut, but they had a different riser height requirement than the rest of the country, which there's no reason. Oh, sorry. A stair riser, like the height of a stair.

Now, there's really no reason you would need a different stair height in one state versus other states. So it's a little bit of both. Some very much make sense and is required based on the region. Sometimes you'll see discrepancies that just don't make a lot of sense. Did this lobbying have any impact at all on building code in the United States or not? Yeah, massively. Yeah, massively so. And kind of across the board.

So there's publishers that publish versions of the code that get adopted. So they lobby to get their codes adopted. So at the top level, there's a massive amount of lobbying happening. But then you also have smaller private interests. Well, I shouldn't say small because they're still quite large. But manufacturers might put a little bit of influence on how the code is written so that their products and their

they're yeah what they produce can can can be like a requirement of the code so it lends itself yeah unfortunately to a lot of private interests and private organizations exerting and influencing that how the code is written sad really this is the ideas to build buildings to a standard right for safety and longevity and sustainability counterproductive

Yeah, it is. And that's the safety and materials going into a building. But there's things even tangential to that. So for example, there's litigation happening now that...

The fire code kind of publisher, so NFPA, is being sued for, you know, allegedly working together with a manufacturer that put cancer-causing chemicals into these suits firefighters have to wear. So this is a suit that they got written into code that they're mandated to wear. And now the firefighters are saying, hey, you know,

like this isn't right like you can't force us to wear these suits that could cause cancer or could have like like adverse health impacts so you see it in the building materials but you also see it in in these tangential areas like what are firefighters their equipment like what do they have to wear that's mental okay switching subjects then um so they is the pro codes act uh has been a hot topic in the engineering and construction industry can you explain

what it aims to do, and why you believe it's problematic if you do. Yeah. Yeah. So, and just to remind a little bit, so these codes that we try to make public and there's other organizations and nonprofits that also try to make these codes publicly available,

historically there's been a lot of litigation so a lot of these publishers say no no we we own the copyright on these codes and um and you can't give those out for free like those need to be behind a paywall or a registration wall so they actually claim copyright on those and say like we're the only ones allowed to distribute those to to the country to the to the citizens and

And this goes all the way back to, I believe, yeah, 2002, where it was litigated. And the legal system said, no, of course, like you can't copyright the law. Like when these codes get adopted into law, you can't copyright that. So there's a big landmark case in 2002 that the courts ruled you couldn't copyright the codes. And there's been, I think, around eight or nine cases since then.

And the courts always come down on the same side saying you can't copyright the law. In fact, one of these went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Actually, that was annotations to the code. But this open access has been like pretty fiercely debated while on the publisher side. Fortunately, the courts always fall on the same side. And now there's just a mountain of case law saying you can't copyright the code.

But the latest move from the publishers is to move to the Pro Codes Act. And it's basically an attempt to go around the court and the legal system because the legal system is starting to, you know, all or is all lining up on the same side. So the publishers are going to Congress saying like, okay, can we introduce a bill that gets around the legal system? It is as wild as that sounds. And it was surprising to us, but that's the intention of the bill. So.

Um, the reason we oppose it is, is because it will, a, it disagrees with the legal system and what, you know, we've spent almost two decades litigating now or the, or people have been litigating. Uh, but two, it has the potential to really limit people's access and, and, um, the way they interact with codes and they, they get their hands on these regulations. Yeah.

Absolutely. That's crazy. Sounds crazy to me. So why is that? Like a stealth tax of some kind attempt to make money off it? Yeah. And historically they made a lot of, I mean, they still do make a lot of money. So some of these organizations make over a hundred million dollars a year. And a lot of that just comes from selling access to the law. Interesting.

And there's a lot of those publishers. They vary in size, but the big ones make over $100 million in revenue per year here in the US. Because creating those acts would have, well, presumably been from the public purse, right? They've already paid for it through your taxes, right? To create these codes. It'll depend on the code, but more often than not, they're actually written by volunteers. So volunteers from industry, so

engineers, architects, government workers will volunteer their time to actually draft and author the codes. The publishers kind of oversee the committees that do that, and then they bind it up into a book and then sell that book. So the code is actually written by volunteers, but they bundle it up and they sell it right back to those same volunteers that actually wrote the code and then to the rest of the country as well.

Okay, that sounds incredibly corrupt. Moving on. So supporters of the Pro Codes Act argue that it helps standardize building regulations while protecting intellectual property, as you mentioned. What's your counter argument to this? You've kind of touched on that. Yeah. So one of the big arguments they make is like, hey, we, to continue operations, to oversee these committees that volunteer their time, like we need to make revenue to do so. Yeah.

And they say if we don't have copyright, we can't make money. Now, if you look at their 990s, because they're categorized as non-profits...

So you can see their revenue going back multiple years. You'll see every single year for some of these organizations like International Code Council or the ICC, that revenue climbs every year very steadily. So I think around 10 years ago, ICC was doing around 50 million in revenue. Now they do over 100 million. So that grows and grows despite the fact that

that the legal system said you can't copyright the codes. And ICC lost this case back in 2002 and lost more since then. So despite all of that, the legal system saying, no, these codes need to be in the public domain, they're making more money than they ever have. So that argument of...

We need to protect the copyright to continue doing the codes. It just kind of falls flat when you look at their public filings and their 990 forms that they have to submit and make transparent. I see. Well, so at present, what they charge for hard copies, you can get like a PDF for free or how does it work? They charge for hard copies. They charge for PDFs. They put some...

version of of access online but they also charge for like full access to be able to copy paste print so they'll do like a very locked down version of free access some some of the publishers some don't even do any kind of free access i see so it kind of it kind of varies uh in terms of like what they actually what they offer and your hands are tied you've got to you've got to pay for the access otherwise you're gonna get hit for breaching the code right if you don't right

I mean, some of these codes, like the FHIR code, have criminal penalties. You have to follow it. These are legal requirements. And so now you have someone who's trying to put this legal requirement that professionals can be criminally charged for behind a paywall, which is just absolutely mind-boggling in my opinion. That's very dangerous too. A very big wedge potentially. Yeah, and

And if you compare that against the Access Board, so the Access Board is all about like, you know, the ADA, so the American Disability Act. So things like making buildings wheelchair accessible or, you know, to anyone who has a disability, just making buildings more and more accessible.

Now that organization, government branch, it has completely the opposite perspective. They're like, look, our ambition is to make buildings more accessible and safer. We want this information out there. So if you look at the beginning of their publications, they actually actively encourage people to spread the word, spread the codes, spread the requirements because they're trying to serve disabled folks to get into buildings. So that's on the other end of the spectrum. And I think that's,

Ideally, what the industry looks like is that we have these regulations we have to follow, but we try to get them out and broadcast them as much as possible so everybody's educated, everybody understands what their requirement is, and then be able to follow them a lot more effectively. Absolutely. And this act hasn't passed yet, right? It hasn't. So in the last Congress that ended early January of this year, so their two-year

sessions, it went to a vote near the end of that session and then it failed. So they're trying to move it from the House to the Senate. Fortunately, a lot of the politicians, I think, started to get wise to this and started to understand the real intent of this was to put these regulations behind paywalls or registration walls and to restrict access.

So that went to vote and failed. Now, it looks like they're trying to reintroduce the bill. So they're giving another go. Despite failing on that one in the last session, they're going to try it again. And

They put a lot of resources, a lot of money behind it in lobbying. So yeah, so that's where we're at today. We're just kind of waiting for that bill to be reintroduced, but it seems like it most certainly will. So do you think it will be passed? And if it is, again, you've mentioned this, but what impact would that have on the industry, on industries?

So I think low likelihood it would pass. I think it still takes a pretty concerted effort to educate politicians, to kind of shine a light on it, to talk about what is the true intent of the bill, what would the outcome be, the impact on the industry. So-

I think it has very low likelihood, but I think it's still important for like a lot of the folks. And there's a lot of public interest groups that oppose it, that are out there educating and talking to the politicians. So there's quite an active community that opposes it. And it is very active now in D.C. to oppose it. But to the second part of your question, what are the potential impacts that it could have?

I think first and foremost, it just it limits access to everyone across the industry, but also homeowners. So if you're trying to lock down how people view the regulations and in the law, it just makes it a lot harder for people to get educated on that and and actually understand what the requirements are.

But secondly, it just limits innovation in the space. So if you compare construction industry to other industries, like say like legal and lawyers, lawyers have a huge toolbox of tools they can bring to bear to do their job. And it's a very rich ecosystem. So there's like plenty of tools they can select from to help them parse case law and all the laws they dig through.

But if you compare that to construction, there's very, very little there. And the innovation in the space has been incredibly limited. This kind of bill would further limit that innovation. So we'll just see even more sparse kind of projects and products and technology in that space. So to give a couple examples like what that could look like, it's things like automated plan review. So if we're going for permitting,

Having a little bit of transparency ahead where general contractors, engineers, architects could actually submit their plan and do automated plan reviews. So it could flag potential issues, help out the government workers for doing plan review for using the same system. So there's a lot of inefficiencies in the system that bringing innovation could actually start to resolve some of these pain points.

to the ultimate goal of just making buildings safer and more compliant. Okay. And is there any parts of the code that are outdated or obsolete? You trim the fat off, so to speak? Yeah, so it's funny you mentioned that because we were just talking about this.

That codes have a tendency to get more complex over time. So if you compare the code today versus 10 years, 20 years ago, it's much more dense. It's harder to follow. There's just a lot more of the code. Now that that's like the attention is good. Like the attention is we need more sophisticated codes and regulations, you know, as we learned from like previous mistakes. So the code should evolve over time.

But no one ever takes the time to go back and kind of clean up old pieces of the code and...

in software engineering, so like I'm very close to that now with with upcodes, but there's a term called refactoring. And refactoring is the software engineer term for taking a piece of like the software code, and understanding its achieved end result, and then try to rationalize or simplify the actual code that gets you to that end result. So it's like, hey, let's say we have like 300 lines of code, and here's the output.

can we get the same output but like cut that code down by like half and I think the building code could could benefit from the same thing it's like okay we want this desired outcome whatever might be like this kind of this like more safe component in a building

But there's a lot of code that has been built up like a rubber band ball over time. Can we just reassess that? Can we simplify it? So we get safer, more compliant buildings, but the code is a lot easier to follow. So to your original point, yes, there are a lot of pieces of the code that seem a little bit outdated, seem a little bit hard. And I think it's because we just haven't sat down to review the whole thing and try to simplify the code in its entirety. Okay, that makes sense.

So you mentioned that industries rely on standardization of code and regulations. Is there anything unique about the building industry with terms of the need for open access? Yeah, that's a good question. I think when it comes to construction and building,

Open access is really, I think, like pretty critical because like we're talking about before, it can carry criminal penalties. Like these are things you have to follow to make safe buildings. So I think more than ever, it is important to be in the public domain so everyone can understand like what are these legal requirements.

But I actually might argue that no matter which industry, if it's a legal requirement, you should have access to it. You should be able to know like what the government imposes on you, like what you have to follow. One example comes to mind, like car seats for babies.

like the safety aspect of that. I know there's been some debate about what regulations are there for the baby seat, trying to put that behind a paywall. And so people can't see. So you as a parent wouldn't know what the manufacturer has to follow to make that baby seat safe. So I think it's really, really critical in construction, but I actually think it's pretty critical everywhere if it's a requirement and it keeps us safe.

Indeed, it seems grossly unfair as well.

If you don't follow these standards, we're going to throw the book at you. But if you have to pay to get access to the rules, that just seems completely unfair in my view. Yeah, and I agree. And it seems a little bit perverse where you have organizations that make literally over $100 million and by virtue of limiting access to these codes. Going back to the point about...

them saying like, oh, but we need to generate revenue to ongoing operations. As that revenue grows, so do the salaries. Like you see them classify themselves as not profits, but a lot of their CEOs make over a million dollars a year.

um base salary i think nfpa gave a bonus to one of their ceos one year i think it was a three or four million dollar bonus so so the these salaries compensation packages revenue look a whole lot more like a really big private organization like in a very very healthy uh kind of in terms of like revenue organization so um yeah i mean that it just seems a little bit perverse to try and limit

citizens and professionals access to the laws. Absolutely. Sticking on this kind of subject then, do you think the current system for developing and distributing building codes is outdated? And if so, what reforms would you propose, if any? Yeah, that's a good question. I think on the first part, on the development side,

It reminds me where we're just mentioning like codes only get more complex over time. So I think on the development side, try to think about how we rationalize or we like simplify a lot of the requirements. So we get the same desired outcome, but it but the text to actually like out outline the requirements to do so are just a lot more simple. Secondly, I think we can bring a lot more technology into write the code.

This might be a surprise. I mean, it was a surprise to me, but it turns out a lot of the code writing, especially when it comes to like amendments and how local jurisdictions tweak and change their state code is written in Microsoft Word. So you have Microsoft Word and so it's totally a free form, right? In Microsoft Word, you can write however you want to write and

When we get those amendments or the changes in codes, we have technology that goes through and looks for potential errors, does QA, QC, and it flags a lot of issues. So we see issues like numbering mistakes, grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, inconsistencies between the code and code.

You know, everyone's a human and these folks writing these amendments, it's a hard job. But the tools they have don't catch these potential errors or mistakes up front. So I think there's a lot of technology we can bring to the code authoring process to catch these errors before they become a mistake. Yeah.

Now, what happens today is the amendments get authored, they get released, our system ingests them, does the QAQC, it spits out a long list of potential errors, and we often send that back to the department. We're saying, hey, here's maybe 15, 20 items you might want to take a look at that seem like they might be errors. And more often than not, it's a very healthy dialogue. They work to...

incorporate those changes and then produce an update to that. But ideally, we can just work together, get that technology in their hands. So before they ever publish it, it's already gone through that vetting process. So I think a lot of opportunity for improvement on the development side is

On the distribution side, like once it is ready to go out, I think just trying to figure out better ways to get it out to everybody who wants to or needs to follow these regulations. So yeah.

whether that's a physical book, it's in a digital form or even things like an API. So queuing up the data for developers, software developers to actually work with it. Some cities actually do this like quite well, like New York city, they have a whole program that queues up, not just like regulations, but all kinds of data around, around the city. And,

And they'll create these data sets and open them up publicly so people can get in there. They can build tools that let others like access that data and start to manipulate the data. So like,

like real estate developers or home buyers or whoever it is can get in there and digest and understand the data. So I think in terms of distribution, it's just how do we queue up the data and all this information so the public can best ingest it and people can start to build tools and innovate and help people actually parse and get into the codes. I see. Was something like a blockchain help there? Yeah.

You know, but potentially, and admittedly, like I'm not the expert on blockchain, but if the government's producing something, like you do want to know if it's the official source and like who's manipulated, who's changed it. And I think blockchain is pretty good for the ledger and understanding like what are the changes that have happened since its original publication. So that's a good point. I never thought about that, but yeah, I think potentially, because then you could kind of trace and understand like how this data evolves. Yeah.

macro duplication and other things and yeah hold people accountable changes right but that's not going to happen is it let's be honest um right uh so on the subject so i'll ask the question what role do you see technology playing in making compliance and code enforcement more efficient and transparent in the future further talk if he talks about

Yeah, I think once you nail that distribution topic or once you've made that data available for people to consume, you've removed the restrictions on access. I think it opens up a lot of opportunities for technology. So I think specifically getting the requirements and the regulations and inserting that into the workflows of different folks.

So if you're an architect or an engineer and you're in Revit designing a building, ideally the regulations are right there. Like you're making a ramp and it would flag it and say, you know, this ramp's too steep for wheelchairs. Or you're spacing your sprinklers and it might say like, oh, this actually doesn't meet the fire code. So kind of meeting the user where they are in the workflow that they are. So that could be, you know, in Revit.

Maybe it's in the permit application system. So you're applying for a permit and it could automatically start to flag potential issues before you even talk to a plan reviewer saying, you know, like your permit application missed these items or maybe the design doesn't look quite right. You can review that really quickly before you actually get to the formal permit application.

For homeowners, it could be like, you know, querying on the government site, just asking questions. And maybe you bring in like AI here to an LLMs to like, you know, parse these regulations. So a homeowner could say, I want to make an extension on my deck. Like what, what requirements do I have? And it could spit out saying like, okay, here, you know, here's 10 things to look out for. And you could, you have a dialogue back and forth in real time and like right at your fingertips. Yeah.

If the end goal is to help people navigate compliance and understand what they can and can't do with the building, you just want to make that as easy possible in every single touchpoint.

Yeah, then maybe lastly, I just mentioned like, I don't like like we, you know, we see on the site or hear stories where maybe like the engineer architects or homeowner has a disagreement with a building inspector. So just getting information to their hands, maybe it's on their phone or a tablet, so they can just have a more productive conversation on site. So they can, you know, ask questions, pull up the code, it's like, Oh, no, wait, I you know, I

um you know the pipe actually you know this the sizing does fit or this insulation in the wall like that that actually is required or not required but just getting to this baseline transparency where everyone has the same access to the same information and and you're yeah you're just operating from the same understanding i think those make much more productive conversations absolutely yeah be able to filter out all the relevant pieces from all the different codes for the issue you're talking about you mentioned pipes there or

like a ramp, like what are the actual bits that are relevant to what we're talking about here? Right. Right. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. Um, has up codes faced any legal challenges over its mission to make codes accessible? Uh, and how have those experiences shaped your advocacy efforts? If you're allowed to talk about it.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we talk about it a lot. So yeah, very, very happy to. So we have. So we've faced a lot of legal challenges. I think we've been sued now six times by four different plaintiffs, I believe. And the initial one, especially, but a lot of them were just surprises. So we started in 2016 or 2017, I think.

And this is a long time after that initial case I mentioned before. So in 2002, there's this landmark case that the court said you couldn't copyright the law. And so when we started, we're like, oh, this is great. We're going to get open access to all this information and put it online and make it freely available to everybody. And shortly after we got our first lawsuit saying like, you can't do that. We want to put these laws behind a paywall and people can't have open access to the codes.

Um, so we got hit with that first one and then another five since then. And they, it,

in no particular order over the course of the years that we've been operating, so coming up close to 10 years now, but it's just pretty relentless. We're ourselves building up this mountain of case law and the courts continue to reaffirm you can't copyright the law. Other public interest groups, non-profits have fought the same fight building up their own case law as well. So it does seem in the US no matter how much case law you have on your side, you can just keep

like lobbying over more lawsuits to impose distraction, impose cost, discomfort. Yeah, and a lot of these publishers are extremely keen to constantly harass and constantly kind of use the legal system as a kind of weaponized system. Well, that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, I think is the saying. So bring it on, I guess. It's for you, all of you.

Okay. So what can engineers, architects, and other professionals do to push for more transparency and accessibility in building regulations or building codes? Yeah. So I think, you know, the kind of bill, the Pro Codes Act is a really interesting one. So we...

It was the first time we got introduced to lobbying, or like DCE for that matter, and politicians, because historically, the fight has been in the legal system. While the publishers are losing that fight, going into DCE is a totally new area for us. So we started talking, educate a lot of these politicians.

And kind of talking to them through the issues, one of the surprising things was how much they care and listen to the constituents. And I guess that shouldn't be a surprise because at the end of the day, these representatives and congresspeople do represent their constituents, but they really care. And when we talked to them, a lot of people had already reached out saying how upset they were with the bill, how much it would impact their ability to do their job or if they're homeowners, their ability to understand the regulations around their home. So

They really, really listen. And it kind of informs their view on how they vote on these bills and not. So I think the best way to advocate out there is just to reach out to your representatives or your congresspeople. We have a page on the site. It's called the Pro Codes Act, Upcodes. So if you just Google that, it'll take you right there.

And it has a widget on the right that you can look up. You just put in your postal code and it'll say who your representatives and senators are and their contact information. So it's a very easy way to understand who are those key people to reach out to. And it really makes a difference. They really, really like to hear. And it surprised me, but they're actually very accessible.

Like you can call them up and they always answer. So you can chat to like the staffers on the phone. You can send them emails. They read the emails, they digest it. They circulate it around the office. So it's, it's kind of like a nice refreshing experience.

view of how the government kind of like listens to its citizens on these different levels. So I think that's probably the best way. That's encouraging. It restores your faith a bit. Right. If you share that link, we'll copy that in for our audience to see. Last question. So where do you see Upcodes five years from now? And do you anticipate expanding its services or advocating for broader legislative changes?

Yeah, it's a great question. And things change so fast. One of our big new initiatives and pushes is into the building products side and specifically around sustainability and things like energy efficiency. So a lot of the codes will define the requirement. So maybe you need some kind of insulation in your wall or you have to reach some performance metrics in the building. So we really want to help

um designers builders homeowners understand how do they actually get there so if the requirement defines sorry if the code defines a requirement how do we actually help people fulfill that requirement as effectively as possible and highlighting you know products that maybe go above and beyond even like beyond the code saying like this is a very sustainable product um starting to surface a lot of the um

uh, uh, documents around that and certifications around the, the, the products. So it's trying to kind of close that, that loop of saying what your requirement is, but how do you fulfill that? And ideally, like, how do you do that in a very kind of like sustainable, um, uh, way. So that, that's a big thing on our, on our, um,

on our horizon, of course, over the next couple of years, we'll be like pushing back against the, the, the pro codes act and, and, and kind of advocating in DC for open access. And, and how do we, how do we queue up that foundation that supports innovation, supports new technology, um, and people actually like innovating in the, in the area. Cool. Is there any way to adapt it to include other

areas of legislation i know a tax code for example that's even worse but um i know you mentioned a product that exceeds current builder regulations maybe one that could attract uh some kind of tax incentive or something would that be possible to tie them up like that yeah that's it's

Yeah, that's a great point. You know, it's funny you mentioned the tax code because when the Pro Codes Act, I think this is last year, there were some articles going around. I think it was Forbes had an article and they specifically said like this slippery slope that could happen if you're like, if you're trying to copyright some regulations in construction, could that leak over and leak into the tax code? And all of a sudden,

you're not allowed and able to see what the tax law is. It's behind a paywall. You can't even see what the requirements are. And that was the specific example they used. But just to riff on that, in terms of the taxes, there are incentives and tax systems that can promote sustainability in a lot of these green codes. And I think

you know, that's an area we would love to get into where we're helping guide people saying, okay, the codes might define the minimum requirement you have to do to be compliant and to build. But can we go beyond that? Like, here's some interesting tax incentive for your project, maybe in your location or your project type. And that that's another pretty dense area, we'd love to kind of bring a spotlight to, again, it has good intentions, like those, those tax incentives and

areas have, yeah, again, good intentions, but it can be very hard to navigate. So like, how do we make that accessible to everybody? How do we open that up so everyone understands all their options? Absolutely, yeah. Carrots need the carrot and the stick, as they say. So, yeah. Yeah.

I think that's an important way to push forward, especially things with sustainability. Stop punishing people so much, help them, incentivize them, not punish them to do the right thing, you know? Right. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because you look at the recent LA fires and, you know, you'll see these like pretty stark images where a lot of the neighborhoods, unfortunately, were burned, but there might be one or two houses that stood and kind of resisted the fire. Yeah.

And people are looking at it now and understanding why. But I think in many of these cases, it's because people elected to go above and beyond the minimum requirement. It's like, can we make a more kind of hardened home that under these circumstances will be protected from something like a fire? And I think this is a great example of that, where it's like, what are the options beyond your minimum requirement?

Now, it's a sensitive subject because the minimum requirement, like there are cost trade-offs. Like if you raise the bar on the minimum requirement, you're also raising the bar on the cost of building a new home. And you don't want to price out people. You want to make homes affordable, accessible to everybody. So it's a very fine balance of what your minimum requirement is.

Um, and I know people like the NAHB, so that's the home builders association. Uh, they advocate for like, you know, you know, keep keeping a cap on that. So like homes are, um, available to everybody and people can construct homes. But I think really where we can shine a light is like, um, going beyond the minimum where it's possible or where like resources provide for it or you're, you're able to, it's like, how do we just build more resilient communities? Hmm.

It's yeah, just a brain fart really. I just wonder with some of those homes, how many were like older ones haven't been refurbed, maybe still have asbestos or something. It can be a useful case to like, well, we, did we go a bit too far banning some of these products? Maybe we should look at these again. I don't know. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And yeah,

And not to get too far into the future or pie in the sky, but there are really interesting tools that can go in and visually capture images of a home or a building. And it'd be really interesting to start to

maybe with AI or other systems, look at the house and say, like, are some of these things outdated? Maybe you're not even up to code as of today's standard. Maybe you're grandfathered in before, but here's a couple options where you could, like, upgrade to the most current code or beyond it to be more resilient. Maybe it identifies older materials that, you know, since the house is built, we know, like, are no longer, you know, great to use, like, to your point, asbestos. Yeah.

But I think there's so little innovation there that it's really a shame because there's so many opportunities to upgrade that process that just drives towards ease of access to understanding your options and then actually implementing those options. But it's exactly things like that. Assessing your home today is really hard. It's understanding the materials that went into it, understanding do they perform in today's standards?

How much would it cost to improve that? How much time would it take connecting with the right builders, the right designers? It's a very kind of tough process to navigate through that. And I think it's just the accumulation of so many friction points and inefficiencies in that system. But ideally, that is very easy for people to navigate and connect quickly to the designer, quickly to the engineer and start to...

plan out and kind of like upgrade their home or maybe it's a commercial building as well. Indeed, yeah. We can only hope. That's all my questions. Is there anything else you'd like to add, Scott, we haven't mentioned? No, that was comprehensive. Yeah, I really appreciate it and came to talk about those different topics. Well, in that case then, thank you for your time, Scott. That was very, very interesting.

Likewise, Chris. Yeah. Thank you for having me on. Our pleasure. Also, don't forget to subscribe to IE Plus for premium insights and exclusive content.