Hebel Matters

Why choosing Hebel for his family home was a no-brainer for David Krogdahl

First-rate insulation, fire resistance, an attractive finish and speed of construction were all important priorities for David Krogdahl when building his new home on the Sunshine Coast.

And having worked with Hebel for almost 20 years, he didn’t have to think twice about choosing the Hebel external wall system for his property.

“One of the main reasons I chose the Hebel system was because of its exceptional thermal properties,” he said. “The house is open living, with some big areas, so although it has air conditioning, I wanted the additional insulation to make it more efficient. Using the Hebel PowerPanel^XL system also gave me the fire rating I needed.”

As the Sales Manager for Hebel Innovations, which is Queensland’s largest Hebel distributor, David has seen enough of the product to know that he wanted to use it on his own home for its appearance as well as its quality.

“Hebel walls as a general substrate are very straight, compared with bricks,” he said. “Even for a good bricklayer it’s impossible to get a wall perfect, whereas the Hebel panels are made so accurately at the factory that you get the appearance of a flat surface, which always looks good.”

The speed of installation was, for David, another major advantage of using the Hebel external wall system. The cladding of the four-bedroom home was completed in a day, with only another two days required for the coating.

“The speed of Hebel installation is important in a growing, competitive market,” David said. “The big thing for builders is to be able to get their houses to lock-up stage quickly. If you can reduce the time of the installation, as we do with Hebel, it makes a huge difference to the cost and timeframe of construction.”

“Speed is also important for clients. It means a lot to them to see the Hebel panels outside their new house when they drive past in the morning to check its progress, and to find the house completely clad when they return in the afternoon. At the same time, they could see a house across the road that is being bricked, and is still being worked on seven days later.”

Choosing Hebel for his home was the result of David’s long experience with the product, an experience which began when he started work with Hebel Innovations as an installer in the late 1990s.

“We did a lot of mouldings at that time, and then I started doing residential PowerPanel installations,” he said. From there he went to work in the factory making the moulds, and then progressed to customer service, sales and his present position, acquiring an in-depth knowledge of Hebel along the way. “When you’re in customer service you get all the tricky questions, so you have to learn the answers very quickly!” he said.

In his two decades in the industry, David has seen changes in trends and demand.

“When I started, we were manufacturing a lot of mouldings for big Mediterranean-style homes on large blocks of land,” he said. “Over time the blocks and houses have become smaller, and now we specialise in installing and rendering Hebel external wall systems in detached homes and retirement villages from the Sunshine Coast to the Gold Coast.”

With the Queensland climate attracting retirees, and accommodation consequently in demand, the skills and products of Hebel Innovations are also in demand by developers such as Halcyon and Living Gems in the south-east Queensland area.

The market overall, David has observed, is increasingly turning to Hebel.

“In the last two years we’ve had a lot of growth,” he said. “With a shortage of bricklayers all over Australia, people are turning to Hebel, because it’s a quality product and it gets the job done quickly.”

“In most cases now, when the builders we work for build a new home, it’s a Hebel home.”

“We have up to five homes with Hebel external wall systems in new display villages, which is significant for our market in Queensland.”

 

Visit the Ausmar Group & Halcyon websites for more information.