242. The Insulation Revolution: Stephen King on the ‘simple’ social enterprise model that inspired a state

Stephen King is the founder, CEO and Head Installer of the Australian Insulation Foundation of WA (AIFWA). While working in his insulation business, Stephen found social housing tenants were desperately in need of insulation, but had no means of getting it. So he set up a charity, added a little premium to his main service, and provided housing insulation for social housing tenants free of charge.

One such resident is Maria Novac – a single mum with a family who unexpectedly found herself in need of social housing, and landed in a neglected hot box. Maria can’t thank Stephen enough for the difference it’s made to their lives. And they’re not alone. And while the flow on benefits are enormous, from health to climate to education and more, perhaps the greatest benefit is what it shows is possible if government were to back in a plan to retrofit all 45,000 social houses in WA in this way. Maria was kind enough to host Stephen and I at her place for this conversation.

Note: the last reference to AIFWA online that I can find is in 2023, and the website is currently not live. This episode is still aired here due the value of this particular story, the at least seven years of work the non-profit did, and the successful model it demonstrates.

This episode was originally released as the sixth of a series of nine episodes I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of WA. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to WA, so we resolved to re-release them here.

To hear the rest of the Clean State series, and more stories of regeneration from around WA, Australia and the world, follow The RegenNarration wherever podcasts are found, or on the website.

You can access the Clean State Plan, and its brilliantly formatted Summary, towards the bottom of the episode web page below (where you can also find a five-minute bonus episode of previously unreleased material from this conversation, if you didn't catch it in your podcast feed).

And for more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Recorded November 2020.

Title slide: Stephen King (supplied).

With thanks to the CCWA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.

Chapters

• 0:00 Improving Social Housing With Insulation
• 11:34 Scaling Up Social Housing Insulation

Transcript

Stephen: 0:00

We had to try and find a way to help social housing tenants and then one night it was very late it just popped into my head why don't I just, you know, for the insulation I install for homeowners, why don't I just say $1 per square metre, t funds free insulation for social housing? And remarkably, it worked.

AJ: 0:25

G'day and welcome to the Clean State WA podcast. My name's Anthony James from The RegenNarration podcast, on board with you here for this special series dedicated to our home state of Western Australia and the newly released Clean State Jobs Plan.

Stephen: 0:41

I'm Stephen King from Australian Installation Foundation.

AJ: 0:45

Stephen's the founder, c and head installer of the Australian Insulation Foundation of WA. While working in his insulation business, Stephen found social housing tenants were desperately in need of insulation but had no means of getting it. So he set up a charity, added a little premium to his main service and provided housing insulation for social housing tenants free of charge. One such resident is Maria Novac, a single mum with a family who unexpectedly found herself in need of social housing and landed in a neglected hotbox. Maria can't thank Stephen enough for the difference it's made to their lives, and they're not alone.

AJ: 1:29

And while the flow-on benefits are enormous from health to climate and education and more perhaps the greatest benefit is what it shows is possible if government were to back in a plan to retrofit all 45,000 social houses in WA in this way. Maria was kind enough to host Stephen and I at her beautifully cool place for this conversation and where we are now. Stephen, it's a place that's been central to your journey in many respects and a real highlight of your journey. I think you even called it your greatest achievement at one stage, can you?

Stephen: 2:03

describe where we are and why? It actually started off. My small business, AusKing Installation, was just starting out and there was quite a big problem with the installations industry at that point, especially with the debacle of Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett and their installation scheme and the media. That gave installation a bit of a stigma.

Stephen: 2:24

Yeah, so important still very important and I don't think the um. Everybody was just going mad. Using electricity especially, new air cons were coming out in the market. It seemed just to change people's theories from instead of getting installation, let's just get a bigger air con, and that made it very difficult for us. But I was actually getting quite a lot of phone calls from social housing tenants requesting insulation and that sort of made me think. And so what's going on here? How is this happening? Why are these tenants calling me? Why isn't the Department of Housing or social housing providing such basic needs to these tenants and why are they still?

AJ: 3:08

calling me. Yeah, you might have assumed it was covered. Their needs were covered.

Stephen: 3:12

Yeah, I just assumed that all social housing properties provided the needs for their tenants. Unfortunately, it wasn't the case, and once I started digging around finding out why this was the case, I was actually quite alarmed of the neglect that social housing tenants were having to deal with such simple and basic needs of thermal insulation on its own.

AJ: 3:38

So what led you to the house we're in right now.

Stephen: 3:42

Well, Mary actually contacted us through our online ad on gumtree simple as that, yeah, simple as that in the beginning we had to try and find a way to help social housing tenants and and then one night it was very late. Uh, it just popped into my head why don't I just, you know, for the insulation I install for homeowners, why don't I just say $1 per square metre, get funds free insulation for social housing? And remarkably, it worked and it brought in a lot of business for the foundation. It improved my financial status as well. I was actually able to, you know, create an income for myself, because it's super hard. In the beginning, I mean, I was on, I was on dire straits because there was just no work coming in.

Stephen: 4:32

So you found people responded when you said with a portion of what you pay me for putting insulation in, I'm going to help other people yeah, it helps and and I suppose it would do I mean, if you, if you have a choice of two companies or other companies that haven't got a a caring point about their business, how long before you ended up at maria's house had you landed on this idea and started to get that fund coming in uh, about six months.

Stephen: 5:01

six months, yeah, it wasn't that long at all, so you hadn't done?

AJ: 5:04

had you done a few social houses before you got to Maria Three, Three? This was early days.

Stephen: 5:09

Yeah, early days, and I wasn't quite sure how we managed to get past the Department of Housing and Social Housing properties. I just didn't think they would allow us, but they did Well. They had no choice because it was up to the tenant to pay for their own installation. Is that right? Yeah, so that's how we entered, and if it wasn't for that clause, we wouldn't have this opportunity, because I believe that a lot of social housing properties, including Department of Housing, have their own contractors.

AJ: 5:42

Well, that's what I'd assume as well. So that's interesting that tenants don't get provided for in that way, or at least weren't. But they've got the freedom to choose how they get it, which probably doesn't help many of them.

Stephen: 5:53

But here's where you step in.

AJ: 5:54

Yeah, so let's talk a bit about why it matters so much.

Stephen: 6:00

Oh, it's incredible. Insulation is such a simple thing to as an addition to a household to make all the difference. Out of all your building fabric, insulation is the thing that really makes the difference. You can have a multi-million dollar home, but if it's got no insulation then it's unbearable to live in.

AJ: 6:19

Or you'll be busting a gasket on aircon and heating.

Stephen: 6:22

And it's noise pollution. If you've got an aircon on all day, sort of that buzz in your ear would have an effect on how you sleep at night. Yeah, the white noise, totally the white noise. No, it's just a no-brainer.

AJ: 6:31

Yeah, and then, particularly for the social housing stock, where you have often more vulnerable people, the benefits are compounded. Same with, obviously, climate benefits, with less emissions and so forth. But you found even more than that.

Stephen: 6:45

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the major impacts that we've had on people's lives is just comfort within their own home. It's less stress, less mental stress, less physical stress. It makes them healthier. Better air quality in the home by removing the old blow-in insulation and reduction of mould. Insulation has solved a lot of our clients' mould issues because when you've got a fan on and if that fan isn't vented correctly into the air beyond the roof, then that moisture stays in the roof itself and a lot of the properties that we've gone to that we've insulated a lot of their vents, a lot of their fans are not vented correctly. It's super nasty, super dangerous very bad for your health.

AJ: 7:34

Yes, and it's so easily rectified by having a good ventilation, correctly.

Stephen: 7:36

It's super nasty, super dangerous, very bad for your health. And it's so easily rectified by having a good ventilation and insulation.

AJ: 7:42

Insulation stops the condensation and the buildup of heat on top of the ceiling and that's really indicative of the health benefits across the board that then feed back into employment and education prospects and abilities to access a life in society that's fulfilling and contributes. That's great yeah. Tell us about what you've seen on that front. How does that manifest itself?

Stephen: 8:07

It takes away the bad issues. It takes away the thought process of my house is hot, I've got mould, my air quality is poor because I've got dust coming through the vent. So you no longer think about these issues. And if you no longer think about these negative issues, then a bit of positivity stays with you.

Stephen: 8:32

It's just something you don't have to worry about anymore and feel stigmatised potentially and worry about anymore and feel stigmatized and and the fact that now you're living with equality and not only the quality, but the fact that you know that every time you don't have to turn on a heater or an air con, you're doing something for the environment and you're reducing reducing your own expenditure with the heating and cooling costs, and in some cases it just outright saves lives.

Stephen: 9:00

Basically? Yes, as a matter of fact it does Interesting. Last week we were insulating a property in Chute Hill and the lady she's got a neighbour. He's 94. And last year when we had those those 40 degree days, the three days it was consecutive, on the third day she realised that she hasn't spoken to her neighbour in those three days and she went over there and he was on the floor laying down and his body had reached a temperature beyond that should be ever experienced and he was hospitalized for a couple of weeks and he lived, but we know many other situations where it's worse than that they actually.

Stephen: 9:41

Yeah, absolutely they don't make it. No and and insulation, simple it's so. It's such a no-brainer. It makes all the difference. It will reduce hospital visits, it will improve health, it will improve the environment and it will improve the hip pocket. So it will improve health, it will improve the environment and it will improve the hip pocket. So we'll put more money back into the community and that allows people to buy better food, you know, excursions, better clothing and more clothing, and it just goes on and on and on the benefits of such a simple thing. I mean the four to six hours takes us to do the job and then life's improved.

AJ: 10:14

I'm glad you mentioned hospital incursions because there's actually a story out of the states right now this appeared on the reasons to be cheerful news site out of the states that started up maybe last year I think a story about hospitals funding housing retrofits. Wow, yes, fantastic. Rather than more facilities in the hospital, because they realize that's where the health begins, and the benefits have indeed included more education outcomes, more employment outcomes, less crime, less hospital incursions, especially for kids, and a bunch of other flow-on benefits from that. It just goes to show what a terrific model that is the hospital itself is injecting that funding it's fantastic, fantastic and you know when you think about it.

Stephen: 11:02

For the cost of a new hospital or an upgrade of a new hospital to to accommodate more visits will probably pay for the installation for all social housing. You know, if it's going to cost them a couple of hundred million dollars to upgrade a hospital to accommodate the amount of people coming through their doors, if they use that money to provide that free installation for social housing or to pay for the cost of that social housing, then that's a large percentage of people not having to come through the door because they're a lot healthier.

AJ: 11:34

In WA we're talking about about 45,000 families slash households that are social housing stock, a lot of it in need, 80%.

Stephen: 11:45

Yeah, there you go 80% are uninsulated or they were insulated prior to 2012, and that means their energy rating would not meet the current standards today.

AJ: 11:57

There you go. So your vision then and certainly Clean State is to have every one of those retrofitted, and not just with insulation necessarily, for that matter, other passive things like double glazed windows and so forth, draft proofing, et cetera.

Stephen: 12:12

Double glazing windows on high traffic areas, solar panels on all their roofs too, and including batteries, so the house becomes self-sufficient Installation, of course, and also ridding of gas out of social housing properties, so we don't need gas at all in social housing properties. There are far better, efficient ways of cooking. Induction stovetops are amazing To heat up two litres of water with gas. You're looking at six to eight minutes With induction less than a minute.

AJ: 12:40

Yeah, and this again is as so many of these interventions are they're low cost to start them, as you found, but they're ultimately no cost or net gain by far. What would be required then for a government to sort of get this going, but in the way that ultimately would be a budget positive type of scenario?

Stephen: 13:05

So in Australia there aren't many ways to offset your carbon footprint, but there's so many other ways you can reduce carbon footprint. Insulation is a massive one. As I mentioned before, 1.8 tonne from each household is reduced from the reduction of heating and cooling costs In a year, in a year per year, and as well as saving of $600. So if you've got 50,000 houses, social housing, properties, if every one of them was insulated and the savings are 1.8 tons per year, then you're looking at 90,000 tons per year of reduction of co2 and that's astonishing considering that our co2 levels for housing sits at 11% of our total. Yeah, so it's significant. It's significant and it would nearly cancel itself out on the top-end scale.

Stephen: 14:00

But obviously, you know, people are still going to use their heaters, people are still going to use their air con, obviously for the extremities of the temperatures, but the majority of those costs will reduce because, like Maria she said she was planning on getting an air con, but now she doesn't have to. She can put up with those three or four day really hot days and otherwise put on a jumper, which is very significant because she's saved herself a few thousand dollars not having to install the air con. And the fact is that that money can go to better use. So you've done about what? 20 of these now? Yeah, 21. We did our 21st property yesterday and we've got one booked in for next Wednesday.

AJ: 14:48

Just to be clear, they don't pay at all, not a single cent. Maria finds you on Gumtree, you rock up and say, yep, I can take care of this.

Stephen: 14:56

Yep, that's what we do. We booked Maria in, jumped up on the roof and then we installed it with R4 installation earth wool, knuff, earth wool. So that's a glass. Yes, it's made from recycled bottle glass Recycled bottle glass yeah. Over 90% of it. It's a phenomenal product. The amazing part about it is its flexibility. You would think glass is not flexible, but it's crazy how flexible these bats are. I mean, they're very durable. There's no shards of glass in it, there's nothing. It's just like a pillow.

AJ: 15:35

That is fascinating.

Stephen: 15:36

Yeah.

AJ: 15:36

And that makes me think, then, because you know, on top of all this and certainly part of Clean State's proposal is that you add a bit more investment to then have solar or whatever's appropriate on this housing stock as well. And that makes me think of the dramatic need, if we're going to roll out renewables as fast as we need to, to be able to have circularity in that system, to be able to bring back a lot of the resources at end of life of those panels, etc. And I wonder then, with the glass in solar panels, if that opens up opportunities to have it come back into insulation, let alone other solar panels absolutely.

Stephen: 16:15

Huh. I mean, we're in a recyclable world now and there's no reason why we can't recycle everything. Matter of fact, what are we doing producing stuff if it can't be recycled?

AJ: 16:25

yeah, there's so much in that isn't there to be absolutely able to take apart the materials.

Stephen: 16:29

Yeah, to process and the fact that the insulation, uh is, is recyclable. You could, it's just glass, so surely you can melt that down and put it back through your process so eventually we can get to the point where we're in a real need to do any mining, to do any fracking. Everything can be reused and moving forward without having to destroy our planet any further than what we have.

AJ: 16:54

Yes, recycling is the new mining. An old mate of mine used to call that conservation mining.

Stephen: 16:59

I like that Just as a metaphor.

AJ: 17:00

Yeah, absolutely I like that, so you've done 22. We need how many 50,000?

Stephen: 17:06

done 000 done 50 000 done objective 10 years, objective 10 years.

AJ: 17:10

So that's to say, I mean I'm struck by, on the one hand, you've just gone and done this like other people can just go and do stuff like this everybody can you just get up and do it.

Stephen: 17:20

You don't look to somebody else to do it, you do it yourself. And if you can't do it yourself, then find like somebody else to do it. You do it yourself. And if you can't do it yourself, then find like-minded people to help you with your journey. This is what we've done and I've had to bring in. I've had to reach out for people to come and help me, and they have. That's what it's all about. You know, even if you spend whatever time you can to help an organisation or to help a person move slightly forward to reach their goals and their dreams and ambitions and obviously if it improves people's lives, then just do it and to get to scale.

AJ: 17:58

having said that, and the empowering bit of just getting on with it, there's stuff that government's going to be able to do here to facilitate the scale and the speed that we're after. What do we need from government or other, even private, mechanisms?

Stephen: 18:15

I think the governments need to really look forward, look towards finding out how major business can reduce their carbon footprint and I believe we have a national carbon offset, I suppose, mechanism, but I feel that the mechanism is very, very difficult.

Stephen: 18:36

We struggle to try and get some sort of accreditation for our carbon credits that we're producing from the free installation that we install. Really, you're struggling like we know that there is a major carbon reduction footprint in insulation and to try and get certification on our carbon credits we have to go international to gold standards to get that. But we're not out there to try and sell credits to anybody else in the world. We want to sell our credits locally I mean really local, like wa, yeah, so I would like to see uh west australian government put a panel together to help organizations like me, uh, like us to to gain accreditations for our credits, and all it takes is is to bring the scientists involved. There was a study done in in new zealand it's called warm up new zealand and they did. They went and insulated every social housing property in new zealand. They've done it, they've done it and they've done their reports and there is a massive carbon saving with the installation, not just from the reduction of heating and cooling costs, but also less hospital visits.

AJ: 19:48

The same thing.

Stephen: 19:55

Yeah, and every component of that process going to hospital carries a major carbon footprint. So I think I would like to see, if we ask to get our carbon accreditation, then governments and corporates should open their arms and say, yeah, we can get this passed, it just needs you know, certification. It should be just a no-brainer. Yeah, ok, look, they're reducing, they've found a way to reduce carbon footprint. Let's help them work out exactly how much of a carbon footprint they're reducing and then give them a certificate so they can sell their carbon credits.

AJ: 20:26

So you can't keep up with the current demand right now.

Stephen: 20:30

You're pushed to the hilt, I'm pushed to the hilt, so you really need other people to come in and do this work.

AJ: 20:35

There's opportunity abounding here.

Stephen: 20:37

We're struggling to get employees. It's just me and my off-sider, terrell. You know I'm pushing 50. I can see you know I'm pushing 50 I consume myself going for another five, at least another five years in the roof I prefer not to be in the roof.

Stephen: 20:49

I prefer to give other young people opportunities to gain employment and and then me step out of the roof so I can focus on getting more people in the roof and more and providing more jobs. And well, we need to. To achieve the 10 years that all social housing done in 10 years, we need to. We need to do 5 000 a year. And if we need to do 5 the 10 years that all social housing done in 10 years we need to. We need to do 5 000 a year. And if we need to do 5 000 a year.

Stephen: 21:09

That's. You know, that's quite a lot.

AJ: 21:12

So much scope there it's such a dovetailing of recovery from covert housing needs, climate related needs, health benefits, yeah, I think clean state actually are talking about a three-year even time span rather than 10 for some of this stuff Ambitious, but not with a massive price tag, particularly when you do consider the loop around benefits that ultimately feed that funding back. But I want to actually go out with reference to a sort of a broader vision. I suppose I introduced the podcast series with this. It's the idea that we would house and employ everyone. Podcast series with this. It's the idea that we would house and employ everyone. Like why wouldn't you have that as a basic bedrock of success of a society, and all the more in the context of the transitions we need? And this seems to be such a big part of it then, particularly when you do marry it up with the other big proposal, which is to house every person that doesn't even have a house. So the 14 000 people on the public housing waiting list, right?

Stephen: 22:11

now in wa.

AJ: 22:12

So if we build those 15 000 homes in three years as well and that brings to mind then what the victorian government just announced a five billion dollar fund to basically do something akin to that 12,000 houses, three or four years and it's very similar to what Clean Slater are proposing here you just get excited then when you marry that with transit centre planning and the renewable energy rollout and the passive stuff that you're involved in, that there's a holistic vision here that could achieve that ultimate mark of success of a society absolutely.

Stephen: 22:48

We've got enough people here to do it. We've just got to encourage them. We've just got to give them the reason why it's so important to to be our chief. Such a thing if you announce a band coming over and they're a big band, probably you know U2. And within three months they're able to gather 100,000 people into one place, and that's just for one band. How hard would it be to create the same sort of hype? But get people into building these places. Get young people into the workforce, even if they just did it for a year. Train them up for three months. Get them working in a year to help out construct and get these houses built. Then after that year they can go off back to studies or it will give them a trade as well if they want to continue on with the trade, but just life experience. So when they go to build their own house, they've got knowledge. It's definitely doable. It's no problem trying to bring the people together. It's the fact that how do we do it and what encouragement are we giving these young people?

AJ: 23:59

Terrific, Stephen. It's been brilliant speaking with you. Well done so far. You've really set a model and a benchmark and it's really exciting. Thanks a lot for speaking with me. SK: Thank you very much, Anthony, much appreciated. AJ: That was Stephen King, founder of the Australian Insulation Foundation of WA. The music you're hearing is by Selfless Orchestra. My name's Anthony James. Thanks again for listening. T.