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TRANSCRIPT
Brendan Torazzi
Welcome to Episode 56 of the Australian Health and Safety Business Podcast. I'm Brendan Torazzi, the host of the show and today I'm joined with Tim Lowry from sh services. Hi, Tim.
Tim Lowery
Going how's things
Brendan Torazzi
good mate? Give us the elevator pitch. What do you do?
Tim Lowery
So we're specialist friable contractors. We also dabble in lead remediation contaminated land, methamphetamine labs coming to thing now we start to see a lot of activity in that space. But friable is still our core business. And it's it's what we get up for, and it's what we're good at. So, yeah, still 90% friable.
Brendan Torazzi
So as like a friable asbestos removal as you said, methamphetamine. Is that, is that like a very short jump across? I'll dig into that a little bit later. But I'm just curious.
Tim Lowery
Yeah, it's, it's look, it's different methodologies, you're dealing with chemists, you're dealing with chemicals, you're dealing with a lot of variables. Essentially, it is still just labour intensive. Yep. Detailed cleaning work.
Brendan Torazzi
Cleaning up somebody else's crap. Yeah, basically.
Tim Lowery
Yeah. So I mean, it's funny, because a lot of these I know, we're sort of a little bit off topic. But a lot of these places that I mean, you're the traditional thought of a methamphetamine lab or a clandestine lab as a dirty, you know, sort of divey place. But some of the projects that come across the like, million dollar apartments, it's not Yeah, right. What you think, you know?
Brendan Torazzi
Yep. I guess I have to be reasonably organised and quiet. Like, it's almost almost would become like a lab, I guess. I mean, it is a lab but almost run like a legal pharmaceutical companies are saying, is that what you're saying? Or?
Tim Lowery
Yeah, well, they're usually the sort of flash in the pan operations. Okay. So they'll go in, they'll secure a property, you know, they'll do a bunch of cooks here. And then they'll either leave it and go, or they'll pack up and go to the next spot. Yeah. Right. quite creative with how they do it.
Brendan Torazzi
So they don't clean up their mess.
Tim Lowery
Not always, sometimes they get caught. Yeah. Right. And then you're there, you know, for that reason.
Brendan Torazzi
And so who would I mean, with that? You don't have to specifically name but is it the government that's employing you for that kind of work? Or
Tim Lowery
no, so it's usually so we'd be engaged by property managers, real estates or owners directly? Yeah, they get given an improvement notice, or that the council, you know, puts conditions on them prior to releasing or Yeah, or, you know, so sometimes, I mean, there could be perfectly good apartments, but you've got to go and strip them out of all soft furnishings and everything for us. Our Wow, sort of gives them a clean slate to work with, again, but they've got to do it once, once they become aware of it, which is through police intervention or whatever, then they have a duty of care sorted out. Yeah, right.
Brendan Torazzi
I can imagine as a, as a landlord or a property owner, that must be a big shock. When you've read a place, and then you've realised that it's been used for a purpose that they weren't expecting.
Tim Lowery
Yeah. And look, I mean, New Zealand's sort of leading the way as far as that sort of part of the industry, with testing with all these sorts of things. But Australia is still really far behind. There purely just response incidents. It's not like you're right actively out there trying to search for positive myth tests, and properties. But when they do become aware of it, like I said, the good adjudicators sorted out,
Brendan Torazzi
yeah, man, I guess whether if it's a flash in the pan operation, it must be pretty tough to and Australia is a lot bigger than New Zealand as well. So there's a lot of space here, but must be like those Whack a Mole things where you think you've got one, and then the other one pops up next door. So
Tim Lowery
a little bit, that's a problem that's not going away. I remember when I first started getting interested in that sort of, you know, part of the industry. I studied in my own time I read national wastewater reports. So they have something it's 50 or 60 locations across Australia. And they've been testing the wastewater for some time now gathering data. And a lot of the regional areas and the places where they're getting really high readings. I mean, this is where they're doing it, right. They're doing it in the cities, but they're more so doing it with a marketer's, which is out in the regional areas.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So So tell us a little bit about your history, Tim, because, as I understand it, you're like one of the best, if not the best in the field of friable asbestos removal. How did you get into, like, how does one get into such a thing?
Tim Lowery
But yeah, so both so with asbestos and lead, both of my first experiences were really negative ones. I learned what asbestos was through accidental exposure. Working in demolition? Yes, I immigrated from New Zealand as a 20 year old. I was I left school I went to the Navy in New Zealand and so I sort of had that On regimented lifestyle ready? Yep. And when I came here, doing demolition sort of just kicking rocks for the first couple of years, we got accidentally exposed on a site. And then I remember seeing a company doing friable enclosure one day, and I was just really interested by it. But then yeah, funnily enough, I got exposed to it. I did I got pulled through x rayed, and spirometry and all these sorts of things. And when I look back at it now, you know, what happened to me was completely preventable. Yes, 100%. preventable. And that's sort of been a bit of a driving force and a passion, you know, throughout my time, because I've worked. So probably coming close to 15 years now. Yep, in the friable sort of game. But I've worked with a lot of different companies, a cross section of companies, good ones, bad ones, big ones, small ones. And so you know, from that sort of show, hopping around gun for hire stuff, I sort of figured out what was a good operation, how you can run it lean and mean, and not have to have all of these phenomenal overheads to be able to produce a good product. And we do we pride ourselves in our product we always have. And that's just how our customers end up finding us is that they hear about us doing good work, and they call.
Brendan Torazzi
Yep. So organic net comes down to that. It sounds like you've positioned yourself as a quality operator, and you attract that one a quality job. And, yeah, because there's quite a few. I mean, I guess every industry has it, but there's quite a few, you know, sort of cowboys around as well that cut corners and don't do the job properly and, and compete against those people on price.
Tim Lowery
And, you know, I've seen him come and go, come and go come and go, you can sort of see the writing on the wall, when you come across a woman pricing against these kind of operators. I mean, we're still a small operation, you know, fundamentally, I mean, we're trying to control our growth, and we're trying to pick our clients and pick out projects, because there's a certain element of monotony, and doing the same kind of projects all the time, and it's in people's stimulated and keen a shortage in the labour market we have done for a long time. And, you know, we're addressing us directly through training. But when you're really investing in guys, and you're teaching them a lot different variations of removals and methodologies, etc, etc. That can also put a lot of strain on them as well, you know,
Brendan Torazzi
and is it so? So for the, I guess, for a person looking to get into the removal industry? What's the ideal background? Would they have been someone like yourself? That's, you know, prior, you know, they've been involved with the construction industry or what, like, when you're training when you're training people? What stands out for you as someone who's going to be good at good at this role?
Tim Lowery
Yeah, it's, that's a good question. It's really an I can just pick up now, I don't know, I don't haven't been pinpoint exactly what it is. But I think people who have perfectionist nature, you know, if you've, if you've got a regimented or perfectionist kind of nature, about you, you make a good friable removalist. Because it is all about fine details and about the little things that make a big difference. When we get guys coming from demolition and construction, usually they're a little bit rough, and they need to be trained into, you know, tribal mindset. Yep. But that doesn't always doesn't always work. Some people are never going to be good at it, because it's too rough.
Brendan Torazzi
So the details count. And other words, yeah, you do need
Tim Lowery
to have a very sort of strict, strict personality to try to do well in it for a long time. Yeah, you know, I know a lot of guys who come in, they spend one year and then after a year they burn out and that's it, you never see them again. And then I know guys who you least expect, and they're still there 10 years later
Brendan Torazzi
now. Okay. And so what what do you think is a good strategy for sustainability in this business?
Tim Lowery
I mean, we're becoming more and more risk averse with our contracts and with things that we do, we're backing ourselves up with a lot more paperwork than what we're used to planning things in the preliminary stage a lot more stringently than we used to used to be able to just you know, hit on out mobilise to a job and just see what happens but now we sort of know every step of the way where we are. Yeah, because it's just as easy to lose money to you know, we can just as quick as we could make it
Brendan Torazzi
so so when you say lose money You mean like you miss understand like, if you don't prepare enough for what's involved for the job, then you can miss a step is that what you're you're referring to Oh,
Tim Lowery
no more so to do with I mean, how hard it is to get a clearance. I mean, we go in with all the best intentions here everything's gonna go according to plan. But then you might have power electricity issues, you might have variations and things pop up. You might have extra stuff that wasn't accounted for. You have a Mmm terminology and the contracts and the quotes that gets misinterpreted on the other end. And so there are a lot of there's a lot of different things that can happen, which can make a project or project negative, you know.
Brendan Torazzi
And so for your client base, and you tend to have customers that I don't like, I'm just guessing here, but they say, I don't know mid tier construction companies that are going to a pipeline of work. And then you're I don't know if they they bring you and sh services back to do the gig, or is it? Is it more one off site? So
Tim Lowery
it is still quite competitive? Yep. It's, I mean, even with tendering, I mean, we're not very strong in the tendering, we tend to stick to our proven relationships. And yes, and as we have with repeat business, that we have clients who have been with us since day dot, and they just keep calling it we give them a good job every time. Whereas with tendering, it's theirs. There's a lot of I don't know, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors. Yeah, we don't really like getting into that we don't want to try and commit to things and then not be able to deliver on them. We don't want to, you know, tell stories and make things out to be worse than they are, you know, but there's a lot of contractors out there. And that's exactly what they do. I mean, we got a contract as we passed against us slander as a tactic to win projects. You know, we don't want to get involved in that. Yes, what a turnip. Do a good job. People call us afterwards and say, All right, thanks. Thanks for your help. And we'll tell everyone about you. That's the kind of customer we're looking for.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Because it's, I mean, I think all industries have this these days that, you know, at one point in the lifecycle, you're an innovator, so you're doing things that other people aren't doing or can't do, and then the market catches up. And then it suddenly it's all about price, and it's a race to the bottom. And that's just not, that's just not good for anyone, really, because no clients don't get a good job, the people doing the work aren't getting paid as they should be. And that just gets harder and harder.
Tim Lowery
Well, one other thing I've sort of learned now the, the, you know, the more mature and sort of industry, the more I sort of advocate a collaborative effort. So I mean, I'm happy to talk to any of my competition, I'm happy to team up, I'm happy to send them leads if we can't service them. But there's still as this element of like us versus them out there, which is sad, because we are all doing the same thing. And if we're, I mean, I'm involved with the associations now as well, industry associations, and, and it's healthy, you know, collaborative effort, is kind of what we're after. We can't do every single job that lands on our desk, you know, we can't always find the gear or the men or the resources, and we need to lean on our network for that. Yeah. And I mean, we've got, I've got existing relationships with companies in Perth, and Brisbane, and Sydney, and we help each other out. We need capital for a job, we're in Perth, and they send us capital for job and they need men for a job, we'll fly guys over the we have each other out. Yes, it's just a lot better.
Brendan Torazzi
That's all it's kind of that idea that I guess it's an abundance mentality where you say, there's enough work for everyone. And if I try and be stingy and hold on to everything, you're kind of doing the opposite, right? Your work flows away from you. Whereas if you're collaborative, and you go, everyone can win out of this, then it just keeps flowing.
Tim Lowery
Yeah, and it's also, I mean, we, we want to upgrade the industry with for too long, we've been associated with dirty demolition, you know, just the ragtag crew, and we try to separate ourselves from them, because we are a specialist trained
Brendan Torazzi
100%. I mean, you have to be so professional at what you do to be to do a good job. But I would imagine,
Tim Lowery
there's no apprenticeship, you know, you can only learn on the tools is one way of learning and that's organic on the ground. Yep. So I mean, if you make
Brendan Torazzi
a mistake, it's like, pretty, pretty severe consequences. Right. So particularly with friable.
Tim Lowery
Yeah, and I've, I mean, not with this company, but, you know, I've been in enclosures when they've collapsed, I've had fires break out of sight, I've had people fall through roofs down onto the concrete, you know, eight metres. I mean, we've had people kidney failure from heat, exhaustion, and, you know, all of these sorts of things have happened in my career, I've seen some really nasty things and a lot of the time it's preventable, but yeah, there's a certain there is a certain level of professionalism that you don't, you're not going to learn it in any other trade. Isolated job, we spend 10 hours a day with full face masks on a sort of social job, you've really got to like yourself to be able to be able to handle that day in day out.
Brendan Torazzi
So COVID has been easy for you mate with a little face mask walking around.
Tim Lowery
If anything, if anything the public are used to seeing people in suits now so we're not getting you know, video, you know, you know videos over the fence type thing anymore.
Brendan Torazzi
100% now might understand at the moment you're in northern New South Wales, I was really keen To get that story while you're up there and and what's happening?
Tim Lowery
So yeah, we are we're doing the flood recovery programme. It's still in the early stages, we have been going hard though, we've run one of our clients out of work and closed out probably the best 40 jobs. So that's 40 more houses that are being reinstated. 40 more people that are not going to be displaced, or 40 More families are not going to be displaced. So we have, we have been enjoying it just for that reason, you know, being able to make a difference for somebody.
Brendan Torazzi
So who gets you up there is that you've gone up on your own back to help or there's somebody somebody invited, you know, I don't know, a government department or something invited you up, or are you there?
Tim Lowery
Yeah, there's a few different places where we work from. At the moment, it's all private insurance and insured builders got Yeah. The main like when public works and John's Linghu, we're doing the big, the whole programme in its entirety, major loss, once they get to town, you know, we'll be working for them. So Will everyone else, but at the moment, it's been private insurers, insurer builders, they're the quickest to react.
Brendan Torazzi
So what's an insurer builder? Is that someone that insured self insured or?
Tim Lowery
No, no. So what they are, is each insurance company has a panel of suppliers. Got Yeah. And they'll have you know, I don't know how many depends how big they are, but they'll have pre qualified insured builders who manage project manage the whole process for the for the
Brendan Torazzi
day, I say and then so your relationship is with the insurer builder and then and then they bring the
Tim Lowery
insurance company would never engage us directly. They're always gonna go through uninsurable.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, because you're just one, I'm assuming you're just one part of the process. And there might be multiple, multiple things that need to be taken care of. So it sounds like you'd be absolutely flat out them.
Tim Lowery
Here we have been, we're having a short break at the moment, because everyone needs to recuperate. Ya know, the boys have been working from dark to dark six days a week, you know, wow, nonstop. We're trying to close out as many jobs as we can, because, like I said, that's, you know, more families back in homes and out of darkness. Mountain caravan. Yeah. And I mean, this is, for me, this is my third major flood event. You know, every time there's an event, we end up on the ground. But in terms of the management of it, I think this is going to be the best. While the best organised one so far.
Brendan Torazzi
What do you think that is?
Tim Lowery
Because, yeah, the insurance companies are getting better and better at it. Yeah,
Brendan Torazzi
they have plenty of experience, I guess. Now. Yeah. They've gathered
Tim Lowery
data over the years. I mean, I'll give you an example. The 2011 Brisbane floods and the Townsville floods, I think there was 2017 18. I can't remember. But both of those events. I mean, the Brisbane floods, we pretty much got given an open chequebook, and they'd say, alright, just go do it. And then when the Townsville floods came, they started dictating the rates, because they'd collected data from the map from the Brisbane one. So they know how much things should costs and they do all of this stuff up front. You don't just get an open chequebook anymore, which is good. It's fear. It's fear, everyone. Yeah.
Brendan Torazzi
And so just walk me through what happened. So there's a flood, but just give me your sort of typical job that you're doing at the moment to.
Tim Lowery
So I mean, we're doing all the low lying areas casino is more watered down all these kind of areas. And I think I think it comes down to the homeowners negotiations with the insurance company, as I mean, some of them we did straight off the bat, within two months of the floods happening, they were stripped out, they were getting reinstated. And then there's other ones that'll sit there for a year and a half, will they go backwards and backwards and forwards and the disputes or whatever they're doing. So the ones that we're dealing with at the moment are people who are trying to get back into their homes and reinstate quickly.
Brendan Torazzi
Right, so you're going in and what stripping out any asbestos and they rebuild. Is that because the floods have damaged the material? Yep.
Tim Lowery
So I mean, it's also because they need to do structural assessments. And in order to do that, they need to be able to access it. And so they do structural drawing mould remediation, or their engineering assessments they do sort of after we've gone through and made it safe. There's two parts of it, there's making it safe, which is, I mean, there is real, no real way to make it safe. But the other part is the removal. So we so we, we team up with hygienist and LA's, and we'll connect them with our clients or clients with them, get them to go out and do all of the preliminary scoping. So they'll develop reports for every house. And if they're good, they'll have quantities and all that on them, which makes estimating stage a lot easier. But once they've done all those assessments, they'll just give us small packages say five or six properties go to those we get close to the end they'll give us another little package
Brendan Torazzi
having your core team that that's why
Tim Lowery
we've had six guys so we've got six guys, all seniors when we need extra bodies on the ground, we get laid Higher. With our business models a little bit different, we sort of focus on investing in senior staff, you know, proper competent technicians because one supervisor can run four or five guys quite easily doesn't matter if they've got experience or not.
Brendan Torazzi
So is saying so with your core team of six, you could be working on six books, different jobs, six different jobs at a time and what is it? What's your typical job like to remediate? On? That's probably a tricky question. But is there an average amount of time that it would take for a resume? Yes,
Tim Lowery
there's everything from, you know, one or two day jobs too weak jobs?
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. Right. Really just depends on depends on the extent of the damage, I
Tim Lowery
guess. Yeah. So some properties. I mean, a lot of what we've been finding up here are people who have gone in and jumped the gun and they've tried to strip out their own property and all they've done is to unbonded materials into friable. So where I'm you know, one example was one of the demolition companies actually sent some guys to go and remove, you know, some doors internal strip out a normal, general demolition strip out of a house. And they went around the whole house at 1.2 metres with a grinder and cut asbestos right through contaminated the entire place friable dust. And they they have they're probably had a newborn baby two days old, they're living in the shed in the winter freezing, you know, and the house is perfectly good to move back into except it's contaminated with friable dust now. No. So all of these things have been happening. We've had jobs, we turn up to go do you know, a sunroom and then we see that the whole house is contaminated with ACD from a previous removal now we can't walk away from it. So it is a real mixed bag. But we are finding that a lot of people have tried to try to relocate the house back into their homes, and they've actually ended up prolonging the process.
Brendan Torazzi
It's really I mean, it's, it must be so hard because you know, you've got all that emotional stress of what you've lost your house or your house is severely damaged. And then you think you're just innocently trying to do the right thing and trying to get your family back into home. And yeah, it can be all these unintended consequences. It sounds like
Tim Lowery
you end up overcomplicating it and extending it, you know. So one other thing that's been quite difficult to manage, is the people. I mean, we're getting abused regularly, as people just hear their wit's end. And it's not our fault. I mean, we're always going to be impartial. We're not going to get emotionally involved in the project. Yeah, I mean, we've had guys rock up and abuse supervisors and pull we're monitors off fences, and all of this sort of stuff where they're not probably don't have good communication lines with insurance, and they don't know what's going on. They just rock up and these guys in suits and masks, you know, right. Probably we have had, you know, issues with the Fed as well. Yeah. Everyone's just the, the sort of strung out strung out. They're stressed and they're over. Yeah.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. And and they've had, you know, preceding this couple of years of COVID. And that just go on and on and on. Isn't this like, perfect storm? Yeah. Yep. So sounds like you're going to be up in northern New South Wales for a while handmade? Is it?
Tim Lowery
Yeah, well, we're, we're estimating a minimum of six to 12 months. Yeah. We've had challenges finding accommodation, because obviously, those people who are displaced to take priority. Yep. We've just been using Airbnb. And that's not sustainable long term with the cost of them, you know. So we are still trying to get established and still trying to secure leases and all that sort of thing to be here for the long term and hopefully be able to make a difference, you know?
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. So what's the what are the future plans for the business, then? You're you must be about what mid 30s Now or? Yeah. 3535? Yeah. Are you young? Are you young Tim, for an asbestos removal us?
Tim Lowery
With my former job description? I'd say so yeah.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. Because, I mean, you've got a hell of a lot of experience under your belt. And I mean, I, I would think that, you know, you I think you're some of the builders that have been in it forever. And, but I guess you bring a fresh approach to have work done. So yeah, we try to be
Tim Lowery
as energetic as possible. You know, we try to have create a good experience for people. I mean, we're still human, we're still affected by all the things that affect you on jobs and life. Yep. Yeah, I think we're just going to keep powering forward. And, you know, this is a second my second run a business scenario. When I started this business. I told myself that if this one went down for any reason, that I would leave the industry and go to something completely different and I'm going to stick by that but we're going to push it as hard wheels fall off. Because like I said, it's you just never know what's coming. You never know. I mean, we've seen We've seen massive big organised companies go under overnight, and we're doing high risk work in a high risk environment with clients who don't like to pay So, you know, we're right in the thick of it. And I think we're just going to spend the next sort of 12 to 24 months just buying more gear, investing back in the business and just trying to control growth rather than try and take every job that lands, you know.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, I guess that's the risk, isn't it? If you leverage you go too much, that I guess the temptation would be to expand with all this work there. But then, if it dries up, you're left with a whole
Tim Lowery
big bills. Bills. Yeah. So that's our, that's our
Brendan Torazzi
slow and slow and steady approach and be might be the way to go slow and steady,
Tim Lowery
pick our clients. We don't want to have debts, you know, everywhere where people haven't paid. We don't want to be messy like that. We're just going to do good work for good people and just keep rolling and see what happens. It's basically the game plan.
Brendan Torazzi
That sounds awesome. So Tim, if people want to get in contact, come with you. Do you have a website? Or how's the best way for Yes,
Tim Lowery
so www.sh services.com Today, you I do free consulting as well. We do the training, we do all sorts of stuff. But if people have got projects that they're just unsure of, they can reach out to me, Tim at S H services.com. That, are you? Yeah, you know, we'll get the chat go and get the ball rolling. And if they choose to go with us cool. If not, that's cool, too. But we just want people to be safe out there. You know, hire professionals, and just do the right thing. That's what we're after. Yeah,
Brendan Torazzi
well, like all goes back to what you're saying. Trying to try to write, raise the professional, you know, the professional nature of your industry and, and make it a better experience for everyone. That's it. That's it. You're on your team. Thanks so much for letting us know what you're up to sound some sounds like very interesting times.
Tim Lowery
Well, good. And thanks. Thanks for having me, Brendan. It's good to see you again.
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Brendan Torazzi
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