Kate chats to Jack Tame about the Suburban Homestead Project on Newstalk ZB
Kate has a regular spot with Jack Tame on Newstalk NZ - every second Saturday Morning.
One of the most rewarding parts of this journey has been watching an idea we've talked about around the dinner table for months (okay... years!) slowly make its way out into the world.
Kate recently had the chance to introduce The Suburban Homestead Project to a national audience during her regular sustainability segment with Jack Tame on Newstalk ZB.
This project has never been just about renovating our 1960s home in Red Beach. It's about asking a much bigger question:
How do we help more Kiwi families create warmer, healthier, more resilient homes that produce more, waste less, and work better with nature - without needing to buy a lifestyle block?
Being able to share that vision with listeners across New Zealand was incredibly special.
If you missed the conversation (or don't normally catch Kate's fortnightly chats with Jack), you can listen below.
During the interview, Kate and Jack covered everything from growing food on a small suburban section, to quail, rooftop beehives, rainwater harvesting, solar power, and why we think suburbia has so much untapped potential.
At its heart, though, the conversation was about something much bigger than gardens or solar panels. It was about showing that sustainability doesn't have to mean perfection, huge budgets, or moving to the country. Sometimes it simply starts with making one better decision at a time.
One of the things we're most proud of is the incredible group of organisations helping bring this vision to life.
Our partnership with Eco Choice Aotearoa has been invaluable, helping us navigate independently certified products and businesses that are genuinely working to reduce their environmental impact. Rather than trying to figure it all out ourselves, we have trusted experts helping point us towards better building decisions.
We also spoke about our electrification journey with Cogo, whose home electrification platform connected us with the fantastic team at Hot Water Solutions, Consolidated Energy, Mainly Gas & Plumbing, and Reclaim Energy.
Since this interview aired, we've officially reached our first major milestone, with our new Reclaim split hot water heat pump system now installed and running. It's the first major transformation of the house - and the first of many stories we'll be sharing as the project unfolds.
It's also been exciting to see the Suburban Homestead Project beginning to gain traction beyond our own channels. Alongside this interview, we've been fortunate to see the project featured in publications such as Woman's Weekly, and we're working with an amazing group of partners who believe in the vision just as much as we do.
We're incredibly grateful to the organisations who have backed this project early. Their support isn't just helping renovate one house—it's helping create a practical blueprint that thousands of Kiwi households can learn from over the years ahead.
And honestly... we're only just getting started.
Over the coming months we'll be documenting every stage of the journey—roofing, skylights, insulation, solar, batteries, gardens, water systems, waste reduction, outdoor spaces, and, inevitably, a few mistakes and unexpected lessons along the way.
We'll share what worked, what didn't, what we'd do differently, and what we'd recommend, because our hope has always been that this becomes much more than our renovation.
We want it to become a practical guide for anyone wanting to create a warmer, healthier, lower-impact suburban home of their own.
Thanks for following along. We can't wait to share the next chapter.