Carland Constructions

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Carland Constructions

Licensed residential building and construction company, specialising in renovations and extensions in Melbourne and the Inner West

High performance + Passive House builder specialising in healthy architectural homes in Melbourne
4 x certified passive house completed

Healthier, Optimised, More Comfortable
Built responsibily and simply built better
We build homes that just feel better

23/06/2026

What more does it cost to wrap your homes walls with a quality product?

There’s a misconception that Pro Clima Australia products are too expensive. We’ve heard this a lot, so we wanted to address it.

We used our Flemington project to compare the cost difference between three brands -
* Proclima Extasana (A premium, high-performance option)
* ProctorWrap RW (A widely respected, mid-range product)
* Trade Select Brane (A standard-grade product often found at large retailers)

Now let’s assume the installation is exactly the same, because all three installation guides are very clear that all junctions, window openings and joins need to be taped.

On this project, which is roughly 250sqm, we needed 6 rolls of membrane, and once converted into a sqm rate for the supply of the membrane, we found the following
Proclima - $4.10
Proctor - $3.31
Trade Select - $3.27

This means on this project, there is a difference of $335.92 between the Proclima and the bog standard crap you can get from Bunnings.

Ok, so now for the tape. The difference between the Proclima tape (100 year durability) and the trade select tape which hardly sticks, was a difference of $671.32

That means, the difference between the best and worst product on the market there is a $1,007.24 difference. To me, that is absolute peanuts and probably the cheapest insurance policy you will take out on that project.

Now the difference between the Proctor and Proclima was a lot closer than I thought - The proctor was only $435.73.

Now let’s also compare the difference in product, because you’re not comparing a like for like product.

Proclima - 180 day UV exposure, Monolithic membrane, airtight, completely water tight, high adhesion and cohesion tape

Proctor RW - 42 days UV exposure, microporous, mostly airtight, water tight, high tack tape (A tape with very high initial tack can sometimes have poor cohesion)

Vapour Tech - 30 day UV exposure, Micro-perforated, not air tight, membrane is in contact with water, can break the surface tension of the water, tapes are vapour sealing.

So, without being biased, Proclima is not an expense—it’s the smartest investment you can make.

22/06/2026

The people who say Passive House isn’t worth it have one thing in common.

They’ve never lived in one.

We do. So this isn’t a sales pitch built on theory. It’s what we wake up to every morning.

And that’s the thing about a Passive House. It’s almost impossible to understand from a walk-through. Standing in one for ten minutes doesn’t do it. You only really get it when you’ve stayed a few nights. When the alarm goes off early for work, it’s freezing outside, and the whole house is sitting at 21 degrees without the heater ever having been on.

That’s when it clicks. Right now our house just works. It’s warm, it’s quiet, and there’s almost nothing running to make it that way. And it’s not one clever trick. It’s everything done properly, all at once. Thick walls full of insulation. Triple glazed windows you can sit right next to in winter and feel nothing. The whole thing sealed airtight, then fed fresh, filtered air all day. Every part backing up the next.

Get all of that right and the house holds itself. You stop thinking about it.

So while everyone else fights their home every winter, we just live in ours.

The real question isn’t whether it’s worth it. It’s why we ever decided cold, leaky homes were normal.

18/06/2026

Did you know that windows are often the weakest link in any wall?

That’s why we pay extra attention during installation.

We could write volumes about this, but here’s a glimpse of what we’ve been doing on our projects over the past few years. With every project, this process slowly evolves into something better!

Rule 101 of window installation deals with water and moisture, ensuring it drains down and away from the building. Rain these days seems to be getting heavier and harder, and wind-driven rain can sometimes fall almost horizontal. Because we have cut a big opening in our walls, we need to make sure we treat them with the respect the deserve.

But what are some of the key take aways and things we need to consider.

Window Placement: Install windows within the insulated section of the stud to avoid thermal bridges and condensation issues.

Weather-Sealing: Apply weather-tight seal tape to the back dam and sill to protect against water infiltration.

Back Dam Function: The back dam acts as a barrier against water intrusion and facilitates drainage away from the structure.

Pre-Installed Tapes: Apply one tape to the external WRB for a continuous barrier and another to the internal airtight layer to ensure airtightness.

Moisture Management: Ensure proper drainage by using a back dam to direct water away from the building and prevent leaks.

Continuous Barrier: Ensure the external WRB remains continuous and intact through proper application of the pre-installed tape.

Wind-Driven Rain: Account for increased severity of wind-driven rain by incorporating protective measures like the back dam.

Ongoing Evaluation: Continuously evaluate and adjust installation methods based on performance and evolving building standards to ensure optimal results.

These are just a few of the small things we have done to the windows to give them long-term durability and to ensure water is moving down and away from the building.

15/06/2026

Some people see our 140mm external walls and think we’re wasting space or blowing the budget. Neither is true.

Here’s what that extra wall actually does. A deeper stud means more room for insulation. We go from the standard 90mm frame to 140mm, and because we also frame at 600 centres instead of 450, there’s less timber and more insulation across the whole wall. More insulation, fewer cold paths through the frame. That’s the difference between a house that holds its temperature and one that leaks it all winter.

And the cost? It’s not what people think. Because it’s only the external walls, you’re looking at maybe 3 to 5k on the whole build. That’s it. It doesn’t blow the budget. It’s honestly one of the cheapest, easiest upgrades you can make to how a home performs.

A few thousand now for a house that’s warmer in winter, cooler in summer, and costs less to run every single day you live in it. We know which way we’d go.

The standard is not good enough. We are.

11/06/2026

Usually im complaining about winter, but I won’t lie living in a passive house is making it easier.

Anyway here is a complete photo dump of what has been happening on and offsite. We have smashed through a fair chunk of the demolition at our Queen Retrofit and cleaning up all the bricks to be reused again.

We also are about to get out of the ground at our Belhaus project with so keep tuned for a fair bit happening soon there as we build out 7th passive house!

We also spoke last week at a retrofit event held by the Passive House Association. Whilst we do build a lot of new homes, retrofitting is the key to uplifting the existing housing stock, and whilst Passive House might not be the full answer, it is a major part of it.

10/06/2026

Most skylights fail twice. Once with water. Once with heat. The water gets the attention. The thermal failure just quietly costs you every single day.

A standard skylight frame sits outside the insulation line. It conducts cold straight into the building. In winter that means condensation on the inside, a cold spot in the ceiling, and a heating system working harder than it should to compensate for a detail nobody thought about properly.

We pulled ours apart and rebuilt the entire frame. Insulated it properly. Treated it as what it actually is. A pe*******on through the thermal shell of the building. Not a feature bolted on at the end.

A skylight done right lets light in. A skylight done wrong lets winter in too.

07/06/2026

Do we want 1.2 million crappy houses?

Jesse Clark from threw that out early and it landed like it should. Because that’s the real question sitting underneath every housing target and every “we need more supply” headline.

More homes is not the win if we’re locking in decades of mould risk, discomfort, and expensive fixes. We got into moisture management, building envelopes, energy codes, and why getting the basics right consistently beats any new product or trend.

Now for anyone that knows of Jesse, he’s probably one of the smartest people in the industry, and someone we should be listening to when it comes to durability of buildings.

🎙️ Episode drops Monday — available on all podcast channels and YouTube. Make sure you tune in.

03/06/2026

Retrofits are harder than new builds. That is exactly why we love them.

A new build gives you control from day one. A retrofit makes you earn it, especially a double brick 1980s home.

We have almost finished most of the demolition and really there hasn’t been to many surprises (we will get to why that’s the case in a second).

Now the whole idea is to turn this home into one that’s going to perform a lot better than it originally did. There were so many big holes in the existing roof and brickwork that there were rats nests everywhere, and a fair bit of water damage from existing roof leaks. So yeah the bar has been set pretty low.

Now retrofitting CORRECTLY is hard. It requires some complex conversations around thermal, air and moisture movement so we can renovate it correctly. We are using heaps of our learnings from our Rifle Range Passive House, and whilst this house might not be going for certification, we are throwing a fair bit of effort at it to improvement.

But why are there little surprises. Well it’s because our pre construction process is pretty dialled in. We got to know this project very well before we even set foot onsite. We knew insulating it was going to be hard so we spent the time trying to find the most appropriate method. We knew airtightness was almost impossible, even for us, but we knew this project in so much detail that we had thought through most of the problems before we even hit site. Also working with again does make out life a lot easier (Good design partners make hard buildings possible. Simple as that)

The industry steers people toward demolition because retrofits require a level of skill most builders do not have. We are not interested in the easy answer. We want to do the hard thing and prove what is actually possible.

02/06/2026

How do we detail our window to cladding junction?

Well, every build is different, and every style of architecture and type of cladding creates its own challenges. But it’s all about protecting the structure and keeping water away from the structure. That’s the number one principle on our projects: send water down and away from the home.

On this project we have .windows and working with cladding.

Like in all of our homes, we make sure our windows and claddings are detailed to deal with water. Why? To give the home the best chance of survival so it can last for multiple generations.

So take a look and let us know what you think

01/06/2026

Most Australians accept that running the heater all day is just part of winter. It is not. It is a building problem disguised as a weather problem.

A home built to the minimum standard was never designed to hold heat. The walls are thin. The insulation is average. The gaps are everywhere. The heater runs constantly and the warmth disappears as fast as it is made. And the homes being built right now have exactly the same problem. The standard has not improved. The build quality has not caught up.

The industry will tell you that building better costs more. And upfront it does. But that argument conveniently ignores what poor build quality actually costs - in energy bills every month, in maintenance every year, in a home that is expensive and uncomfortable to live in for the next three decades.

Building to the minimum is not a cost saving. It is a cost transfer. The builder saves money. The homeowner pays for it every single day they live there.

It is time to lift the standard. Not because it is the fashionable thing to do. Because it is the only responsible way to build.

Address

Opening Hours

Monday	08:00 - 16:00
Tuesday	08:00 - 16:00
Wednesday	08:00 - 16:00
Thursday	08:00 - 17:00
Friday	08:00 - 16:00

Telephone

+61425854025

Website

http://www.carlandconstructions.com/, https://linktr.ee/carlandconstructions

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