We are back at the R Club recording another great podcast with my guest co-host John from Craft and Clerk and Stones Throw Construction, we open the show with a few shout outs and a special shout out to the wine that John brings, thank you Sir.

Find Joe from Napa Valley Developments at www.napavalleycontracting.com and joe@napavalleycontracting.com and he is not on social media and Manny is very happy to hear that. The bell is wrung when Joe presents the truth behind a lot of social media images on construction business pages, are they really their work? The conversation gets a bit hot under the hood especially when Joe brings up TV renovations and how he refuses to discuss parallels with TV and a real construction to a potential client. Joe brings up his back story where he was the construction team on a show from the early 2000’s called Mondo Condo about renovating small spaces and he hated how TV pushed him, he worked for free and he disliked how TV always painted a negative image of contractors. Manny wonders where he has heard this before? Hmmmm. The stigma of “you’re just a contractor” sparks a debate across all three men and all three bring up some great points about how clients, designers, architects, the public perceives contractors.

John began his career in construction in 1982, working in subdivision track building as a labourer for a framing crew, framing 1100 sq ft homes in 4 days and the shit that he went through would literally make the new trades of today cry. The abuse he was subjected to would have child services on speed dial, but that’s how the industry was then and some people feel it should go back to that way, because things got done, and people were tested, confirming construction was for you.

Joe takes us down his construction path, from framing, to renos, to custom homes, to duplexes, triplexes, commercial, boutique condos builds and more, Joe has the skills to pay the bills, as John would say. These days Joe is actually comparing wood framing to concrete building for his triplexes and concrete is about par to wood and even if he was 15-30% more for concrete, he would still go with concrete because of the fire separation and added expense to safely secure wood framing for fire code. Things to consider these days.

What changed things for Joe was his Drive, his passion to move forward and while he was working, starting a family, he was driven to buy a place and flip it, so he did, then he bought a restaurant and partnered with his Uncles, bought more places and flipped them and still to this day he is still buying, working on them and selling them, even in today’s ridiculous real estate market. Joe says there is opportunity everywhere, just do the work and find them and besides he looks for places that most don’t want, whereas Joe has the skills to buy something that is not over his head.

What an amazing talk, thank you Joe. Loads of construction, old school, new school, restaurant building, cooking, handling clients and crews and so much more. Thanks you Joe for being on the show.

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