Can Rice Hulls Really Build a House? (Yes, And It’s Genius!)

Hello and welcome to the Conscious Design Podcast. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, and I help turn product ideas into sustainable 7-figure businesses. Join me for another episode where sustainability meets innovation and business savvy. Today, I'm really excited to have Chris. He's the CEO of Modern Mill, a company who's created a non-wood sustainable building material with a variety of uses in the building world. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

Absolutely. Well, everybody loves a good origin story. How did you guys get started?

Yeah, so came across a technology that we felt was being underutilized, and we morphed upon that technology to make our product into what it is today, which is Acre by Modern Mill. And it's essentially a foamed board extruded product that really utilizes rice hulls, which is a throwaway agricultural product. And the whole goal of the company was to create this product that looks and feels like wood.

Right. Well, yeah, that's really important, right? To the old growth. If you have a tree farm, that's one thing, but old growth is a whole, whole other issue when you start cutting that stuff down, which it's a great material, but there's not enough to keep up with the demand. Really?

I tell people all the time, like, that's one argument that's tough to win, to say that we as a society can continue to cut down old-growth trees. We can't. In our lifetimes, those trees won't be grown back. And that's very different than, like you said, farming trees on a 10-year cycle, right? So if you think about other types of woods that can be farmed sustainably, that's maybe fine, right? Still might have its own challenges, but you can generally find ways to innovate around those challenges, hopefully. And that's not my area of expertise. But what I do know is that continuing to cut down old-growth trees, something that would take 100, 200, 300 years to grow, that in and of itself, you can't do that forever. You run into the place of supply-demand issues with that, right? There's more demand and there's less supply, so some other product has to come in and fulfill that demand. And I think when we think about Modern Mill, and by the way, our brand, it's Acre by Modern Mill because we're saving acres and acres of old-growth trees, or we're upcycling acres and acres of rice husks. So if anybody's like, Where did Acre come from? That's where it comes from. So it's Acre by Modern Mill, and Modern Mill because we're a modern take on a sawmill. But if you think about Acre and you think about our siding product, you almost have to ask the question, why would you ever cut down cedar again to use for siding, especially when our product looks and feels so much like it? It's got a beautiful vertical grain, and then you don't have to maintenance it, right? So that's a whole other side of that. We'll talk through this, I'm sure, is some of the Psychological benefits, right, of using our product. Just knowing that you don't have to go out and maintenance that next year, or that ground contact is okay and the product isn't gonna rot, rust, splinter, or crack, doesn't absorb moisture, so the coating's not gonna fail. Whereas if you think about taking cedar and staining it or painting it, you're going to have to go out in the next year or 2 depending upon the climate, sometimes sooner. If, if it's an oceanside install, it could be within 6 months that you're back there scraping and repainting. So there's really no reason to use old growth trees for siding anymore. And, and, and that's where the composite world comes in. So a lot of other composites have been developed for siding. The problem historically has been there's a compromise. That composite will still look and feel not like wood, right? It could feel plasticky, it could feel something else. There's various types of composites that are out there. So we've always said that's a compromise, but why would people even go with the composite? Because they don't wanna cut down the tree and they don't wanna deal with the maintenance. Now, why wouldn't they go with the composite? Because they don't like the look and feel. It doesn't have that biophilic design that we have, right? So, it starts to bring in these other areas. But, when I think about old-growth trees, I tell people, listen, you want to cut an old-growth tree, use it where it really matters, small areas. Think about a sauna. You want to be inside of a sauna where you want to smell the cedar? Okay, maybe that's an application. But, the exterior of a house, it's a huge amount of square footage, feels to some extent wasteful when you don't have the opportunity to keep growing.

Well, especially when, if you have to oil, lacquer, paint, like you're, yeah, it's, it's just a base material at that point. There's no, if you're just gonna cover up. When I was a kid, I actually, we had a family of friends that I helped maintain their cider. The siding was, it looked great, very beautiful cedar siding. It was amazing. People loved it. But man, so much work to maintain it and keep it. And I, I grew up in Pacific Northwest, so Super rainy, if you let it sit, it would rot. You had to be really on top of your maintenance to keep it nice looking. So there's, I definitely see that. And it's funny you mentioned like the look and feel, cuz most, a lot of people, when you say composite, they immediately think of like the fake grain on a plastic board that just looks, looks and feels pretty terrible. And they're like, well, why would I give up this really nice look for for this veneered fake wood that'll just peel anyway. Anyway, it's great that you guys are able to, to bring that more organic side to it that attracts people. Or is one of the reasons people love cedar is it's that more organic rather than plastic.

Yeah. And I think the market that we're going after is everything from modestly priced custom homes up to $50 million homes or more on a beautiful coastal install. And I was recently out in Orange County, California, and there was a painting contractor who was literally following me around this event that I was at. It was a lot of the subcontractors that helped to build out Orange County. And, I didn't even have to explain to people what our product was because he was. He said, why would anybody use wood anymore on these expensive waterfront installs in markets like Orange County when you have a product like Acre that essentially gives you that look and feel of that old-growth vertical grain type wood, then you don't have to go back in maintenance. Because this was the guy, being a painting contractor, would have to go back 6 months later. And I actually asked him, I said, wouldn't our product adversely affect your business? He's like, I don't care. He's like, I have enough business, and it's just wasteful to have to go back and scrape and repaint after you finish this beautiful home. So when salt and moisture come together, it, it's, it's— you can imagine it's even worse. And if you think about why wouldn't that Just pick a number, $25 million home on some Orange County oceanfront estate. Why wouldn't they use the composite? They feel like it doesn't align with what they've built for their home, so they don't know any better. And they say, well, I'll just use some wood, some cedar or whatever. So you have a gentleman like he was running around and saying, wait, now you have an option. Now you have a viable option where you don't have to compromise because it doesn't have that plasticky feel, but it gives you that feel of, of old growth or wood with the vertical grain, and you don't have to maintenance it. So it's, you get all these benefits. By the way, not going to be subject to termites either. So, when you think about pests, don't touch it. There's a lot of reasons that go into it. And, all that starts to translate into this, I call it a psychological benefit because our product definitely gives you this. When you think about a home, there is an element of security. So, I don't know, my personal homes, I feel better when I'm in it knowing that there's Acre on the side of it because I know the weather's not going to touch it, I know insects aren't going to touch it. We'd get a benefit of sound reduction because it acts as a nice sound barrier. So, it's an additional layer of insulation. And then you get a thermal benefit. So you can keep your house warmer or cooler depending upon what climate you're in. So all these features and benefits come in and you just start to go, wow, what, why wouldn't you? Right? And the only reason why wouldn't you is you don't know about it yet. And that's what we're obviously trying to do is get this out on a broad level so people understand it.

Oh, that's why we're here to talk about it so people know that it's available, an option. Now, performance-wise, because you've mentioned a few things, right? Soundproofing, there's no, no bugs, no moisture, it's not gonna rot, fall apart. How does that compare People think of, oh, well, you know, PVC siding is pretty much similar to that. But I've also lived in places where mold likes to grow on it. It starts to war— like too much sun. Like, I live in Arizona. There is no PVC siding because it would all melt every year and everybody would have to re-side their houses. So how does your product sitting between kind of the high maintenance How does it compare with the high-maintenance pure organic woods versus the PVC that, at least I grew up Pacific Northwest, that was every house was just PVC, every neighborhood. How do you guys match up with those performance?

Yeah, so, you know, we always say, you know, what are we really doing? We're taking the rice hulls and we're displacing polymer, right? So when you do that, you get an inherent benefit, meaning you're going to expand and contract less. Than just 100% PVC. So I think that's the first starting point. The second place is how do you install it, right? So we're very mindful of, of creating very robust installation guides so that people can understand it. They know what to do with it. They know what not to do with it. So if you think about our installation guides and what are we trying to avoid, it's exactly what you said. If you look down the side of a house on a lot of composite materials, that's called like oil canning where you see that waviness. And that's everywhere, right? Like if you look at the extruded vinyl profiles, you see that a lot there. If you look at, Regular, some of the new PVC siding. You see it there. You see it on some of the cement fiberboard products. So that's you see it on wood, right? So you see it a lot of times. But I would say more on composites is where you'd see that sort of oil canning where it looks a little wavy. How do you avoid that? The first way that we started to avoid that is is in the profile that we created. So our shiplap profile has a blind fastener, right? So so it essentially is a tongue and groove. So it's interlocked connect together, and we specify. Every 16 inches that should be fastened, right? We like screws better than nails, but you could also use ring-shaped nails. And then we essentially, we recommend gluing the joints together. So if you have 2 joints meeting, we'll say, you know, scarf joint that. And then we have a rabbeted trim product where on the trim, it's a little overlap where the siding can go behind it. And so any of it, any expansion contraction would happen back there. So you ultimately wouldn't see it. So if it's fastened properly, if it's coated properly, and to your point, what's the worst of the scenarios? Somebody disregards our install guides, they put it on a south Facing wall in Arizona, where it's getting sun all day, right? With the wrong coating, wrong fastening. Yes, you're going to us like wood or anything else. You're going to get movement, right? So the way to mitigate that movement is to be very mindful of the install guides, which is why we've gone through incredible efforts to make sure that those install guides are clear, easy to understand. Generally, we'll go on the side of over recommendations. People don't always follow it, and they go a little bit less. And you know, generally it can be fine. It's usually if it's a combination of you missed everything: use the wrong coating, use the wrong fastening.

It was south-facing wall.

It was like every. Scenario comes together. For us, we still have a very, very low rate of anybody calling that has problems. We've been very mindful. If we have something, we get in front of it. That's how we've been very successful very quickly. But I think making sure that the install guides are done properly— I think intentionally designing that shiplap product so it's interlapping is important. Interlocking is important with the tongue and groove. So we've done a lot creating the rabbeted trim. A lot of those things start to mitigate those things. So performance, because That's really what you— we're going after at the end of the day is performance. It's great if the product doesn't rot, rust, splinter, and crack, but what happens if it starts warping or buckling, whatever? You don't wanna have that happen. I would say in general, we have a very robust install guide that helps to mitigate that. People feel good about it. And as we continue to innovate new products, we're always thinking about that, meaning where could somebody completely sort of miss it and something could happen? And again, it's not just our product, it's every product. But, the high-level takeaway point there is also remember that rice husk isn't subject to expansion-contraction the way a polymer is. So ultimately, we inherently will have less than just a polymer-based material.

Right. So, you're able to get it much closer to a cedar than other composites because of that rice husk there is bringing in more, I would say, more stability really to the material. For those environmental impacts that normally can change what a composite looks like?

Yeah, I would say there's 2 factors to that, right? One is the rice husks that displaces polymer, so less thermal expansion contraction because less polymer, less expansion contraction. The other one I would just say would be that in our process, we draw the density down by adding a— we create what's called a foaming process. So instead of having this compound being all condensed without any ability to move, right? If you think about a typical extruded profile, that is going to be a higher density, higher specific gravity.

Right.

So, you can imagine when you try to put 2 pieces together, there's not a lot of give. So, the other part of it is due to our process, we create this sort of forgiveness in it, meaning it's, think almost like a sponge where you have a little bit, where you have air, you don't have polymer, and it gets a little bit more forgiveness. So, it's the rice hulls offsetting polymer and also The nature of, of the foaming process draws the density down and just makes it a little bit more forgiving and easier to accommodate. And by the way, that's also what makes our product look and feel and work like wood. Right? So now you can cut it with a traditional woodworking tool. So saws, drills, screws, anything like that. Like, woodworkers love working with our product because it, it works so much like wood. I mean, it, it, we always say 10 outta 10 builders, like, approve. They're like, oh, that's amazing. Once they get their hands on it. And by the way, it goes in a whole other plethora of issues that we resolve, right? There's our dust drops like, it's like sawdust, right? It doesn't float around in the air. It's not like a silica dust. So it's easier to work with, easier on the tools. A lot of people say it's, it's actually easier to cut than certainly certain types of woods. If you think like an ipe where it's like a, you know, a harder wood where it's harder to work with, usually beats up your tools.

Right.

People love working with our product cuz it doesn't have that. And a lot of that comes from that, that foaming process, which starts to give us that Really workability of wood.

Right. Well, that mimics a lot more like cellular structure of, of a tree rather than dense, like you're saying, just solid polymer density that gets really, really hard, hard to deal with. And I would imagine from the installer standpoint, if they don't have to have custom tools, cuz I know dealing with PVC as a whole, you don't want to take a regular Sawzall to that necessarily. It can start to have issues. So that, I would imagine that makes it easier as an installer to be able to work with it if they already have this toolset. They don't have to buy more tools just for this one install.

That's the broader sort of question of, you know, why else are we here? Right? We're here to make people's lives easier. Right? So it's not just the consumer that's using it. It's the install— who, who ends up benefiting from having it on their house. It's the installer that uses it. Right? We wanna make Their lives easier as well, meaning it doesn't beat up their tools. It's healthier. You don't need a HEPA filter in the way that you do with some other products. Right? So the dust isn't floating around the air. Like, we love to demo our product because people— like, we were just at the IBS trade show in Vegas, and people come by and we're demoing the product, and people love it. They're like, wow, this is amazing to be able to see because, like, the sawdust truly just drops like dust. And by the way, that's all— If we pivot to our manufacturing process, we're in a zero-waste manufacturing environment, right? So any sawdust that we create through the cutting process, we bring that back through our dust collection system and put that back into the process. We truly are zero-waste manufacturing, meaning anything we generate for waste goes back into the next product, which is an amazing aspect of it. So then we are also 100% recyclable as well.

I was going to ask about that because I saw that you do on the manufacturing floor, you're able to recapture all of that and bring it back. Well, 2 questions. What is the lifespan of this? Like, do you have a— you haven't been around for 100 years to necessarily test it for, for 100 years yet, but what kind of lifespan do you expect with this? I know it depends on location, of course, right? Sun, saltwater, those all, those all do damage. But then at the end of that life, could you recycle it back into your manufacturing process?

Yeah. Definitely. So anything that at the end of its life, and if you think about a more relevant example, because probably if somebody puts it on their home and 30 or 50 years goes by, right, who knows where things are going to be. But a more relevant example would be if we sold our sheets to an OEM manufacturer who was making tabletops, right, running it through some type of a CNC operation. We would want to put some type of a bin there to collect all of that scrap and then bring it back to Modern Mill. Grind it on location and put it back into our process. So, so yeah, anything that's generated in terms of scrap, whether it's at Modern Mill today or whether it's at a place where we can aggregate and collect it and bring it back, we want to do that. So that would be like us selling some type of an OEM that's making, just in that example, tabletops or cabinets, kitchen cabinets, exterior cabinets. We would want to definitely create a— put a bin there, collect all that, because that's pure cogs coming back for us, right? That we want to put that in as back in as raw material feedstock. And that starts to create that circularity of, of that. We talk about circular economies, right? That starts to be an example of that.

I love that.

Yeah. So it's, it's an amazing aspect of it, the, the recyclability of it. And then in terms of life, I mean, we generally create warranties similar to what industry standard is. I believe we have a, I think it's a, a limited lifetime. We'll have to fact-check me on that, but we have a limited lifetime warranty on it. And people, one other thing I should talk about is that Acre can— is a stainable composite, right? So we send it out raw, and then if you want to put whatever stain you want, we always just generally say follow our coatings guides and use a water-based stain or paint with certain IR reflective pigments that are in there to reflect the sun. But if you think about that scenario, you put a coating on it, what we're starting to get now is working with some of the coating manufacturers that will test that and start to hopefully over time give more definitive you know, years of how long that coating will last on our Acre substrate materials. So we've started working with a lot of the coating manufacturers now to sort of build that out. But yeah, the, the material itself should last obviously quite a long time. The coating is gonna be a lot more than wood, a lot longer than wood, right? And that's because in the way that wood absorbs moisture, and that's generally why the coating would fail off of wood, meaning the wood's absorbed. Think about your example, Pacific Northwest, it's really wet.

It just soaks in and puddles it up.

Soaking up puddles of that and it gets in between the coating, right? The paint or stain and your substrate material, thereby Causing it to start to fail. Because if you think about the attributes of a rice husk, it might absorb a tiny amount of moisture, but significantly less than anything that— in fact, at the IBS here, we have a thing of water there. We're throwing it on there to show people, like, it doesn't really absorb moisture. And that's why it performs so well in these types of climates. But because of that, the coating is going to be much, much more or less likely to fail. So where we'd imagine you'd start to see some degradation would be just exterior applications where the sun's hitting it, UV. So we'll put, you know, additives, UV additives, things like that. And certainly those are in the coatings to try to extend those lives. But that's the other beautiful thing about it. Let's say 7 or 8, 10 years goes by, you decide you don't like the color anymore. You could easily just sand it down and repaint it or restain it. Whereas most other composites, because they are delivered pre-finished with a pigment embedded into the surface of the material, it's sort of a one and done. I mean, you might be able to find kits that can, you can do something with, but when you think about sanding it and repainting it. It's generally a lot harder with other types of composite materials. With our material, you could just sand it, repaint it theoretically if you wanted to, or if you got tired of the color.

Okay. So you're able to— obviously, it's not as, not as often as cedar siding you would have to do it on, but you have that ability to maybe get sun damaged or something like that, whatever it is. Or like you said, you wanna change the color of your house, which people do that. They, they'll repaint the colors and stuff. So You're able to change that color or redo it, uh, through the lifetime of, of the base material.

Yeah. And just in general, we, our coating is gonna go a lot longer than wood, right? I have many personal installations at, at a few homes that I have, one down close to where we manufacture in Mississippi. It's actually in Louisiana. And we've had a fence there now for, it's gotta be 5 and a half years. It looks like the day we put it down. There's been, there's been virtually no UV degradation that's visible. Right. A lot of examples, to your point earlier, we have been around 100 years, so, you know, time will tell, but we have installs that go back 5, 6, 7 years. We look at it and it's very minimal fading or degradation at all. So that's the idea of the product is that you, you could put it in place, you could sort of one and done and have a quite a long run before you'd ever have to even think about maintaining it. Whereas like, think about that Orange County painting contractor, 6 months later he was telling me after certain installs by the ocean, he's back there scraping and repainting cuz that, that coating's already failing off the wood. So it's a significant benefit. And, and our goal would be to get to where, you know, you, you, in, in the lifetime of that home, you, you really wouldn't have to think about it that much. I mean, that's really what we think about. And again, depending upon tight, like you said earlier, which climates are you in? What's it generally exposed to? What type of coating? I mean, if it's painted white, theoretically you could have a even potentially even longer. We have white installs that we've looked at for 5, 6, 7 years now. Looks exactly like the day we put 'em down.

Hey, it's your host Ian. I'm really glad you're enjoying this episode. I absolutely love highlighting amazing brands and founders for the awesome things they are doing. I've helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and businesses like yours turn their boldest ideas into powerful, purpose-driven brands. So if you're serious about building a brand people love like our guests and clients do, and one that you're proud to stand behind, I invite you to dive a bit deeper with our book Conscious Design. Inside, you'll discover the exact framework and steps we use to help entrepreneurs like you turn purpose into a powerful, impact-driven brand. A brand that stands out, attracts loyal customers, and drives sustainable growth with social and environmental responsibility woven into its DNA. Grab your copy today. You can find it on our website, consciousdesignhouse.com, or just find the link below in the show notes. Enjoy the rest of the episode, and don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. That's awesome because maintenance, right? When you look at all these things in the cost of a house, especially maintenance, especially these bigger houses, it just becomes a well. You have so many square feet of site; you got to take it. You have to take care of it. So reducing the amount of time you have to. maintain it, the number of times you have to paint. Like, I can only imagine how much this guy charges to do a $10 million mansion on the side of the ocean to scrape and repaint every 6 months. That has gotta be a big bill. Yeah.

And maybe that was just one example. Maybe some people would say, well, you don't have to do this once every year and a half, but it's still a lot. Every year and a half you gotta go back and scrape and repaint. And again, I think he was saying if you want to keep it looking primo, because when he finishes that, that $10 million or $50 million home, He wants it to be beautiful. You don't, like, you don't want any imperfections on it. So then you go back a year or two later and the paint is peeling off. Okay. Well, that's the main aesthetic that you're seeing, right? When you drive up to the home.

Yeah. It's every— it's almost, it's the windows and the walls. So yeah, the windows are gonna be fine, but if, if everything else is peeling, that's not gonna look really good. Yeah.

And I would also say the environmental impact of peeling paint near whatever, the ground, the ocean, whatever, it's probably good. Most people would just say it's probably not a great thing. I mean, of course it's been happening, but if I think anything you can do to help to mitigate these things is a good thing. And I think the main thing that I always think about when, when, when what I hear from people is there is this psychological benefit of like when you put acre on the side of a house, you just, and I just recently did it at, I have a home I put our board and batten on. So it's, you know, thick material sheets with a batten strip. And what was there was an extruded, cheaper— I didn't build this house, I bought it, it was already on there. So in the process of taking that on and putting on the board and batten product, it was like an immediate— you could feel this immediate warmth that developed in the house because it's in the Northeast. And then you could— there was a major reduction in sound. I just wasn't hearing the wind noise as much anymore. I wasn't hearing the street noise as much anymore. And then psychologically, just knowing that that material is okay for ground contact, meaning it's not going to start to rot or rust. And then knowing that— not that in the Northeast we have a termite problem. If you think about down south where they might have a termite problem, knowing that termites aren't going to touch it, there is this— it's almost like a psychological relaxing that happens. And that starts to get into this biophilic design, right? Because we haven't really touched upon that. But like, when you mimic wood, I mean, there's been study after studies now that show that we take a material like Acre by Modern Mill with upcycled rice hulls, especially because of that natural product, you bring that natural product into an otherwise something like you said earlier that doesn't look so natural, looks plasticky or whatever. There is this element of stress reduction, psychological benefits. We're even starting to look at that in interior applications. So, if you think about a hospital instead of it just having a very white sheetrock or whatever, PVC or whatever that they use, if you could use Acre and you start to bring in some of those inherently already has that biophilic aspect to it because of the rice hulls. But if you now use a stain and it's, it's got a warmer feel, and we're starting to see that right in hospitality. I'm, I'm in a hotel right now. There's a lot of earth tones in this room. Hospitals are starting to bring it in, but Acre can really, you know, amplify that. And then of course you have antimicrobial, antibacterial, anti— you can spray it. So chemical, you could spray with cleaners, things like that. So, so there's a lot of reasons why it starts to make sense to use it. But when you think about the biophilic nature, We think about that. We hear that a lot. People just feel good. We always say this is one of the best dinner party conversation things you can have. So, if you're out on your deck, Pacific Northwest, New England, wherever you are, and you have this on the side of the house and imagine you're on a Watermill deck with Watermill siding, Acre siding, and your porch ceilings are made of it, people will start to ask, wow, what is this stuff? Because you inherently want to just touch it. And, that's that because of the ricinols. That's what I've always noticed with Our product, people are drawn to it. They want to touch it. They want to work with it. Woodworkers love working with it. But, at a dinner party conversation, imagine telling that story, oh, this is made from upcycled rice hulls. Wow, I didn't know we grew rice in this country. A lot of people will say that. And, by the way, I never thought about rice until I got into this business. And now, I'm realizing how much rice we actually produce in this country. So, we're upcycling that rice husk, which is a throwaway agricultural product. So, that is absolutely benefiting the environment and Not allowing that CH4 methane gas to be developed through the degradation process. So we start talking about these things, people get excited. And the fact you didn't cut down an old growth tree and the fact you don't have to maintenance it and the fact it looks and feels so much like wood starts to be very compelling.

Right. Well, and yeah, I love what you're talking about hospitals too, because that's, you know, anybody that's been in a hospital, they're very unwelcoming spaces and anything and being able to be cleaned. I've worked in designing ER rooms and stuff like that and Usually what kills any sustainable product— I've even worked with a dentist trying to get more sustainable stuff into dentist offices, and usually what kills the sustainable material options is you can't clean it, because as soon as you start using any of the serious cleaners, it eats it away. And they're like, well, we're, we're not going to re-side the rooms and re-sheetrock or anything every 6 months. They'd be back with that painter. They're— they'd have to redo it. So usually it's always, always been that hurdle to be able to get something into a medical space because they have, have all those requirements like the antimicrobial and it's gotta be cleanable and it's gotta be survive wear and tear and abuse 24/7, especially like ER and OR rooms. You know, you gotta be able to survive what you're doing in there. So yeah, I hopefully, hopefully you guys get into some hospitals. It'd be great to Great to see a better option in there.

Yeah, we're working on that, working on senior care, skilled care facilities, like all types of applications like that. And if you even think about it, just the story, imagine you're in a senior care or a skilled care facility and, you know, you're able to share that, that this came from, you know, the throwaway agricultural product rice and, you know, and it has that warmth and beauty of wood and now it's interior so people can experience it. I mean, we're, we're starting to see a lot of opportunities to have to bring that on the interior. You know, generally people think about our material as an exterior, right? We just won at the IBS show. We took the gold award in the, I think it was the Pro Builder MVP Award, and we took gold in the entire category of exterior. So a lot of people know that we're, we're an amazing exterior product, but there's a whole host of applications that you can use on the interior. My personal homes, I have it for kitchen cabinets, right? I've just sent our Acre sheets to a kitchen cabinet person and said, go ahead and make me kitchen cabinets. He's like, how do I do it? I'm like, how do you use wood? He's like, I put it in my CNC. I said, put that in your CNC. He said, how do I paint it? I said, how do you paint wood? He goes, I put it in my booth and I paint it. I said, do the same. Didn't give him any other instructions. Those cabinets are still there, that home in Louisiana, 5, 6 years later. They're straight as can be. The paint hasn't chipped at all. And I, I contrast that to my— I have another home up in the Northeast where it was— I did— we just didn't do that at the time when I built the house. This is a different home than the one I was referring to earlier, but We use just wood and painted it with, you know, white or whatever paint. And again, a couple years later, you can always see that, that chipping. That's in the Northeast where it's not even super humid. So that issue of the wood absorbing moisture and the coating failing is real. I've seen it at these homes. And then you have to ask the question, is that a place where you really need the wood in a, in a kitchen cabinet? Some people might say, yeah, I really want the wood, but Acre is, is a viable alternative to give you that look and feel of wood. It has that It has that grain, it has that feeling, has that biophilic nature. So interiors is a really interesting opportunity as, as time goes on. As we start the conversation, that old-growth tree issue becomes more and more relevant, right? Because we continue to cut them down, we got a problem as a society.

Yeah, we definitely need alternatives that look— and I'm glad you mentioned the interior side because there's so many. I feel like that's where even more like old-growth hardwoods go because people are You're looking for, you know, as a homeowner, yeah, you want the outside to look good, but you live inside the house. So you care way more about the look and feel, even, even more so inside, because you're constantly, you're standing next to the wall and you're touching the cabinets and you're right there. It's touch points. And so being able to swap out at least some of those areas into a more, more sustainable, better option that Lasts longer, easier to maintain. I mean, I'm thinking about all the kitchens I've had. They all get beat up so quick, so quick. Any painted, it all gets beat up quick, so quick. There's a lot of maintenance to keep it looking nice.

So that's another interesting application for our product, and we've, we've used it in these applications. But you think about a kitchen backsplash, right? You could do that in shiplap, and now you have something again that looks and feels like wood, but it's okay for water contact. We built interior showers out of our products. So you just put the sheets inside the shower, finish it however you want it, turn on your shower, and we've, we've had those going for 3, 4 years. Look, look like the day we, we put 'em in, right? The water truly doesn't touch our material. So if you think about interior showers—

Yeah.

I mean, it's a shower, right? So if you think about interior showers, you think about like a, an area where there's a washer dryer where, you know, sheetrock might normally not do so well with, with the moisture hitting it. We always like to say there, think about wherever there's water, it's a, it's a great opportunity to try to use a Modern Mill product. And the sheets that we sell can go into anybody that's doing anything with sheets loves it because there's, back to that earlier point, there's no real change in, in your equipment. So if you have a CNC, it's kind of the same. If you have, you know, woodworking tools, it's, it's essentially the same. So people love to work with it. You can do all types of things. We've even thermoformed it in various applications. You know, if you think about folded, folded corners, you could just run like a, a V-router. down one side, and they actually did this on this old house, and then you can fold that corner so you don't have a seam. You know, you don't have to miter those 2 things. So the material is— you could thermoform it, you can heat it, bend it. It's thin enough so that you could actually—

you can almost do some sculpting to it as you're—

you could curve it. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And so have people used it as like a sheetrock replacement? Because I'm thinking like when you describe that really nice V-groove and fold it, like that can make a really nice easy corner instead of sheetrock, sheetrock, metal strip that you then spent 3 hours plastering to make it look good.

Totally. So I've built homes with this and used it in replacement of sheetrock, and people love it. Like, the builders that are working with it are like, wow, this is just amazing to work with. It's more robust, it takes damage better, right? If you hit sheetrock, it dents. Like, if you hit Acor—

Or just crumbles if you hit it wrong too.

I mean, right, right.

Poke a hole in for a light switch and you might just crumble, crumble out of the way.

If you think about like some credentials that we have, just as an example, we have the Miami-Dade for screw and nail pull for, for high velocity hurricane wind loads, meaning you— we duplicate a hurricane wind load behind it and it, you know, shouldn't come off the wall based upon certain fastening systems of, of screws and nails. So we pass that credential. So if you think about that now back to the interior application, so if you've got this sheet up on a wall, you You wanna hang a picture, it's just inherently got a stronger hold than like a sheetrock would.

If you just think about practical things and you know how you secure tall bookcases so the kid doesn't pull it on himself and cause problems? You actually screw that in and you don't have to do, you know, those pop-out bolts that go, you know, those kinds of massive and, or hoping you find a stud then.

Yeah, exactly.

Especially some of the houses I've had, they're Sometimes they were built and they may not have put a stud where you thought there was, and then it becomes a whole problem that you can't— there's nothing even close to structural because that sheetrock is old and not, not worth it.

100%. Yeah. So just, it makes life easier on so many levels. Now, are the economics there to go really compete in the sheetrock world? I would ask the question, what's the total cost of using sheetrock, right? We sort of have to start to look at that, like what scraps generated, what PPE is required to, you know, there's a lot of things that start to go into those conversations. You know, I think the price of sheetrock right now is so much lower that it's not our volume market, but certainly people have used it, including myself, and it works amazing, right? And you get all these other benefits. I think something else that's really interesting, if you think about like hotel lobbies where they're using these types of paneling systems that kind of mimic wood, that would be another great opportunity to use our product because it's, it's, it's just going to be probably more robust than some of that. I'm sure we've all been in hotels. You start to walk around, you see the damage when people are hitting things with suitcases. So we're just going to have a stronger product. And then if you, you know, if some— if there is some real damage, you can just sand it and fix it. So easier to maintain. But yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of really interesting interior applications that we haven't even started to go after. Our main go-to-market at this point has been exteriors, shiplap siding, trim board sheets, a little bit of decking, porch flooring, stuff like that. Edge and center bead where people like to use it for like wainscoting, where again historically they were getting type certain types of woods that aren't available anymore. Think about, you, you want to go get some cedar, go to your local, you know, big box retail store or dealer, whatever. Generally it's picked through, there's knots in it.

It's not—

it's hard to find clear vertical grain type stuff that's like in that, that looks really nice. And that's where our product really starts to shine because it, it looks like that so much, it feels like that and works like it.

I'm curious if you've done this because obviously there's, there's some plastic in this where there's polymer to component to it. And, you know, people will always go, well, it's not, you know, not purely, purely organic. But I'm wondering if you've looked through like the lifespan, because if you have to latex paint the outside of your house 30 times, how many, like if you add up all those layers, all of that, plus the scraping, plus you're definitely, that's definitely getting washed into, they're not going to capture all of that when they scrape it off. and paint it again. If you've done like a lifetime comparison between standard use, because you have to maintain it so much less, that you're— my guess, if you haven't done it, my guess would be you're probably way ahead in even in polymer use compared to painting over, over and over and over again.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, the nature of what we call the acre grain. So we think about our process, we We grind the rice hulls, we mix a compound, we extrude a board. That board comes out 4-foot wide by whatever thickness you want, right? 3/8 up to 1 inch thick. And then downstream from that, we run it through a sander, and that's what creates this beautiful acre grain that's on it. And that's a, a very specific process to, to create this, this vertical grain. Then we run it through a gang rip saw to rip it into width, and then we run it through the molder. But that, that process inherently creates an excellent surface for the adherence of a paint or a, a stain. Mm-hmm. To adhere to. And so that's one of the demos that we, we were just doing at IBS last week in Vegas was people come by the booth and we'll just take a little bit of— dip a rag into can of stain and we'll just, you know, one, just, just literally wipe it. And people are amazed at how easy that application is. It's so easy to stain. That's one of the main parts of our, of our demonstration. We love to demonstrate that, the stainability of it. And then numerous companies have tested the adherence of it. So then we have this sort of off-the-charts result of adherence, meaning the paint or the stain adhering to the Acre material. And so all that's going to play into the degree to which it does not fail, right, over time in the extended life of it. So if you compare it to wood, it's a non-comparison. If you compare it to other composites, other composites, some of them still will absorb moisture, the ones that are just all plastic. They might have a decent performance on that level, but it's, it's not gonna take the paint the same way that, that ours will. There, there's probably very specific, depending upon what type of composite it is, you might have to prime it first and you might have to use very specific types of paints. And generally you're not gonna be able to stain it. There's very few, if any. I, I believe we're, we're probably the only stainable composite that stains just like wood, right? You might have some other claims or somebody says, well, I can stain mine, but what does it look like after you stain it? There's a reason we do that demo because people see it, they're like, wow, that's amazing. Looks like a piece of ipé, mahogany, cedar. Like if you had a piece of ipé and then stained, and then you had a piece of acre finished the right way to look like that ipé, meaning we just chose the right color and just applied it the right way, it's indistinguishable. You can't tell. So that's so when you start to think about how well it that it takes the stain or paint, especially the stain, it's game changing. That's what really is a differentiating factor. And then yeah, you create longevity through that because it's obviously going to. we'd be way less likely to fail than something that absorbs moisture such as a wood. And if you think about other composites, some of 'em still absorb moisture and then others you have to paint it a certain way and you're only, and you really start and then just talk about paint, which brings us back to, there's been a big compromise. It looks and feels like plastic instead of looks and feels like wood, which some people are okay with, right? There's a big, you know, extruded vinyl market out there for people putting it on the sides of their homes. Generally speaking, when they see Acre, they're like, Why would you use anything else? But it's, there's probably a market for everything. And what we're doing is we're trying to create the awareness so people have the choice and they can look at it and say, well, I prefer something that looks and feels like wood, has the biophilic nature, isn't going to have to require the maintenance. And I saved the tree and I upcycled the rice hull. And by the way, it's made in the USA, right? So we're 100% made in the USA where we have a 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Burnwood, Mississippi. We've created jobs. We take care of our people. We have this incredible culture, right? So we really try to embrace these ideas of consciousness on a multitude of levels, right? Not just the product, not just the people working with the product, not just the people that are benefiting from using it on their house, but the people at Modern Mill that are working there in the way that we try to create quality jobs and try to— so it really becomes this full circle type of a thing where we're trying to It's a culture, it's a way of thinking, it's a way of approaching business with our suppliers, our customers, that full sort of circular economy.

Amazing. I love what you guys are doing. I'm excited to see, like I said, hopefully you get the hospitals to agree to let their interiors get a little nicer. That would be amazing. I feel like there's so many, you're kind of just touching the surface of the applications of this. of this material with what you can do with it from a structural but also just a visual nature inside and out. So it's amazing what you guys have been doing, and definitely hope you guys keep— I want to see more of it out there.

The other thing I would add is that we do have the wildlife— it's called WUI, I think it's Wildlife Urban Interface. It's a credential that allows you to be in high fire-prone areas, right? So we're able to put our cladding and siding in markets that require that, that WUI credential, which is great. So that's helped us to really go into other markets too, where historically it might have only been certain types of products that were fire rated. But, but with our product passing that, it's amazing. So there's a fire rating that, that comes with that as well. Like I said earlier, the Miami-Dade for screw and nail pools. So some of the toughest credentials we've actually got, and that creates all those sort of exterior opportunities where we can really move the the needle in terms of addressing deforestation, not cutting down trees, and then not having to compromise with something that doesn't look and feel like the wood that you wanted. But as we continue to go on, we definitely want to think more about the interior applications, furniture applications, working with some of the bigger brands that have been approaching us that want to work together. It's been an amazing opportunity, and we're really, really happy with what we've done in a relatively short period of time.

Yeah, and I have to say, I'm not I don't know if everybody knows the hurricane rules for Florida, but they're— we've designed roof-mounted solar panels and things like that, and they are no joke for—

Yeah.

They're highest in the wind ratings in the country, which is definitely an achievement to, to get approved for use there. And, uh, you mentioned the fire part, which I saw you guys are, are helping with some of the rebuilding in, in LA actually. And I would imagine the The fire portion of your, of your material is, is part of why people would be very interested in that, having just experienced what regular siding and all that can, can burn very quickly.

For sure. Yeah, we wanted to help after the recent fires in LA. So we've committed to donating material to up to 20 families that would be in need of that to where they either didn't have fire insurance or they There was a gap between what their fire insurance would cover, so Modern Mill would donate siding to the rebuild of those homes. And we've already gotten 4 or 5 really heartfelt inquiries that have come in that we're going to support those families. We want to help as many ways as we can. That donation was meaningful, and we want to help those families to rebuild. And the fact that we have the WUI credential allows us to be able to put the siding in those markets. Which is great. And hopefully it will help to prevent a fire depending upon what those circumstances would look like.

Or at least, you know, a better peace of mind knowing, I would imagine after living through that, knowing that your house is better, the new built rebuilt house is better positioned to survive something like that. That'd be, that'd be a huge, huge peace of mind to have, have from that. So as you guys are doing that. Well, yeah, so this has been really amazing. I really appreciate your time and chatting through this. Love what you guys are doing. For everyone listening, and we'll have, we'll have it in the notes and everything too. But if you could just quickly, what's the best way to reach out to you guys, connect, learn more, you know, whether it's from an inquiry of buying it or adding you as a supplier?

Sure. So modern-mill.com is our website. You can learn all about the product there, install guides, everything I was talking about earlier. Everything's there. Beautiful pictures, great ideas of what you can do with it. Um, all the awards, there's been a plethora of awards that, that we've received, all the credentials I was talking about, everything can be found there. We generally sell through the, through the distribution channel. As we go on in time, we're getting more and more coverage. Right now we have a pretty decent national footprint so that if you go to your local lumberyard or local dealer, you would be able to ask for our product. And if they weren't stocking it, which, which a lot of them already are, but if they weren't, they'd be able to reach out their distributor and they'd be able to bring it in. We always tell people, you know, if you, if you have a project and you're working with your builder, he most likely has a relationship with a dealer or lumberyard local to, to the market that you're in. And most likely, we've done a pretty good job at gaining traction. Most likely, if they're not stocking it, they've heard of it and they can get it. And then if all else fails, like, we always encourage people to write into us if they are having trouble getting it, and we'll have our internal people facilitate that to make sure that anybody that wants to use it can use it. But yeah, we, we encourage people to use it for, you know, trim boards, siding, um, sheet goods. If you have, you know, projects you wanna do, sort of that return to craftsmen, enjoy working with wood. It's an amazing product to work with. So we like people to get their hands on it, play with it, and, um, really experience that biophilic aspect of, of, of what Modern Mill is.

Well, thanks for being on the show. Really appreciate it. It's been fun.

Thank you. I appreciate it, Ian. It's a pleasure to meet you.

And that wraps up another episode of the Conscious Design Podcast. If today's episode inspired you to bring your product idea to life and turn it into a sustainable 7-figure business, visit petermanfirm.com or click the link below. Your ideas have the power to change the world, and we're here to help make that happen. Thank you for joining us, and I'll see you on the next episode.