Intro
Building materials manufacturers run a complex business, but we are here to help you plan for the future. Whether you are launching a new product, rebuilding a brand, trying to get thoughtful communication strategies in place or everything in between. Here on Constructing Brands, we will be talking with leading experts in construction, architecture, engineering, marketing and manufacturing to help make your building materials company stronger and more profitable. With 15 plus years of experience helping building materials companies succeed and grow your host, Eric Lanel.

Eric:
Good morning Constructing Brands. Today I’m so happy to have on a gentleman named Stanley Fleyshman who is representing a company called Carbontec. In Constructing Brands, some of the things I am trying to do is find companies that are looking toward the future to make the future a better, brighter place. Whether it be by reducing our carbon footprint or utilizing technology, finding these companies, these pearls that are doing these things and hearing from the people who are controlling their success, not only from a marketing perspective, but from ideation, how they came up with it or why they feel there’s a need in the marketplace. That’s something that always excites me. Hopefully it’ll excite you as well. So without further ado, Stanley, welcome to Constructing Brands.

Stanley:
Thank you, Eric. Glad to be here.

Eric:
When did the company get started? How old is the company?

Stanley:
Company’s about six years old. It’s a relatively new technology made in Germany and has a pretty strong track record over there in Europe. And once we got that, we moved into the US market. So over here, you know, it hasn’t been too long, only about a year.

Eric:
What was the impetus to bring the product over to the US?

Stanley:
New technology. It’s really something that’s revolutionary. It could really disrupt the current HVAC market. So, that’s the plan.

Eric:
So the idea is, Constructing Brands, this is a new technology. So why don’t we start at the beginning? Who your target is and what your goal and objective is.

Stanley:
Sure. So Carbontec, it’s a paper thin material. It’s a radiant electric heating system. Pretty much it can be used as a primary heat or as a secondary comfort heat. But our main goal is to get it out there as a primary heating source, meaning it can replace boilers, furnaces, central heating systems, all of that. So our main target would be developers who are building up these buildings, landlords, architects who can really get our product integrated into their projects.

Eric:
Are there any projects that are entirely heated by your product currently?

Stanley:
Yes, there are apartments. We are working with some landlords who have their entire apartments heated with our system.

Eric:
So the idea here through using the radiant heat and it’s ceiling and floor, it’s both. It’s for both. It has both applications. This could kind of do away with having a furnace and you’re using electric basically to radiate heat your home or your office or your building. Is that correct?

Stanley:
Correct. So there’s multiple things we have to go through when talking about that because there’s a lot of education that has to be involved with our system. When speaking with industry experts such as architects and engineers, they often ask, why would we install our system on the ceiling? Doesn’t heat rise and the answer to that is hot air actually rises, not heat. Heat is a transfer of energy always trying to reach thermal equilibrium, so pretty much when we install it in the ceiling, it’s going to radiate down and be absorbed by all of the surrounding objects. A good example I can give is you walk into your car on a hot summer day and the seats are extremely, extremely hot and it’s very, very hot inside the car. You roll down your window, all the hot air goes out, but the seats are still hot because they retained all of that energy. That’s what our system does. It heats up the objects in the room, not the air. That’s the difference between radiant heat and conventional heat.

Eric:
Interesting. You’re about one year in the US, in Germany, you’ve been for about five years. What have you done to educate? It sounds like educate and trial is probably, it’s a stage you’re at from a marketing perspective. What have you done in Germany and what are you thinking about doing in the US?

Stanley:
So in Germany it’s a lot simpler because the codes aren’t as strict as they are here in the US. We have to meet a lot of codes such as UL, that was a very tough process and that’s something that a lot of engineers and developers look for. But in terms of education I would say the people in Europe are much more open to the new technology. Over here in the US people, I would say, are scared of change. They’re scared of trying new things because they just want to go with what works. That’s something that we’ve been facing as well.

Eric:
For my audience, which are people who are making decisions with their building material companies similar to you, it sounds like you have a decision to make right now, which is you’ve got proof of performance in Europe, right? So you have proof of life.

Stanley:
Right.

Eric:
UL, the big thing that you guys were reaching for because that gives you more credibility in the market.

Stanley:
Right. So UL is pretty much like the FDA for food. It’s the same for electronics. It’s pretty much a company that says this is safe to go out into the market. This is safe to use. Really that’s what you know is used to pass all of these codes that you know, the building department is looking for.

Eric:
So you’ve got UL, which is something you could point to, to show that you are a reputable company that passes code, if you will. Right. So the next stage I would imagine is education. What have you done in this country?

Stanley:
So we’ve been at a lot of trade shows. We’ve been at a Passive House Expo, we’ve been at the New York Build Expo several more home show expos. We’ve been pretty much just educating the industry experts and reaching out to them to have them on board and have them use our system. And then it’s pretty much they pass that information onto other industry experts and that’s what we’re looking for.

Eric:
So education leading to awareness and then obviously trial. That’s kind of the stages that you’re running through. Now, so new company, and tell me about the actual, what’s the end end benefit? Is it a cost savings to a consumer?

Stanley:
Great. So there’s actually quite a lot of benefits with Carbontec, and the first is it’s super easy to install. Let me just walk through the installation process really quick. You’re going to take a one timeline from your fuse. You’re going to run it to a thermostat. From the thermostat, you’re going to run it to our step down 24 volt transformer, so it converts the 110 into 24, so it’s low voltage. And then you’re going to run the wiring from the transformer to our material itself. You’re going to pretty much apply. If you’re putting it on the ceiling, you’re going to apply compound on the ceiling and the material is perforated. So it’s very easy to just press right into the compound. That skin coat, you know someone paints over it and it’s like it’s not even there. So ease of installation number one. Number two is it’s a space saver. It opens up so much space and it’s indiscernible to the naked eye. Only way to see it is with the thermal imaging on. Actually have videos on our website and we have examples of installations where we show this. So pretty much you don’t have to run all of these events that take up an extreme amount of space. This is why interior designers love our product. There’s no radiators on the sides. Pretty much, it’s amazing with the amount of space it saves. Next, it’s great for people with asthma or trouble breathing because there’s no recirculation of air. With conventional systems, they blow hot, dry air out and it just, recirculates around the room. With our system, it just radiates that infrared heat throughout the room without any recirculation of dust, no allergens, things like that. Also you can create multiple zones. You know, with conventional systems you just turn it on, it heats up the whole house. With our system, every single room can be its own zone. Let’s say you like it very hot in your house. Someone else likes it cooler. You can adjust the thermostat temperatures in your rooms.

Eric:
Each place where there’s a thermostat in effect is a zone, correct?

Stanley:
Correct. Right. Next it’s very, very efficient. It’s about 98% efficient, boilers are usually 80%. There’s a lot of heat loss just by, you know, heating the water, heating the pipes, all that heat escapes. Carbontec pretty much heats up the objects in the room directly. You have to think about it this way. When you apply it into the ceiling in between the compound and the drywall, it’s kind of sandwiched in. The drywall is, I don’t know, let’s say a quarter, a quarter inch thick. The compound is super, super thin. Heat can travel more easily through the compound downward to all of the occupants and objects in the room. Whereas the sheetrock has more thermal mass. It will take a bit longer to heat up, but once it does heat up, it also acts as a battery kind of radiating down that heat and only there’s about that 2% heat loss which goes above the sheetrock so super, super efficient and also it’s very safe. Since it’s low voltage, 24 volts, there’s very little risk of electric shock or fire and since it’s kind of sandwiched in, there’s no oxygen running through the material itself so there can’t possibly be a fire.

Eric:
Very interesting. It sounds like a product for the future or for the present? I guess, right?

Stanley:
Heating of the feature today.

Eric:
So Constructing Brands, we’re speaking with Stanley Fleyshman of Carbontec. Carbontec, a company that is actually looking at how you heat your home and creating a building product that challenges the current world of oil or gas by creating a radiant heat scenario where it’s not in addition to, but it could be instead of what you’re currently using. Is that about right Stanley?

Stanley:
That’s right. I would also like to bring up a couple of opportunities here in the state of New York that we found. There’s a lot of legislature that has been passed that would actually benefit, you know, the use of our product. So I’m not sure if you’re familiar with local law 97, it pretty much states that buildings would have to reduce their carbon emissions and it’s a plan. I don’t know, up until 2050, so stage one would be by 2024, they have to reduce a certain percentage of carbon emissions. By 2030, it has to be an even higher percentage and mostly carbon emissions come from heating systems come from the boilers. So the best way to reduce the carbon emissions would be by using electric, electrical heating systems. So that’s a huge opportunity right here in the New York market. Hopefully other states will follow and that’s something that a lot of landlords and developers should really look out for.

Eric:
So, Stanley, if I wanted to learn more about your product or speak to you, how can I reach you?

Stanley:
If you want to reach me directly, you can contact me at (646) 408-4635 or email me at stan@carbontec.world. If you want some more information on our product, www.carbontec.world.

Eric:
Stanley, what a pleasure. Speaking to you today. I love hearing different people who are looking at what can make this world a little bit better. Isn’t that what it’s all about? And through building material we can.
Stanley
Thank you, Eric.

Conclusion:
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