In this episode, we talk to a YouTube superstar, Grady Hillhouse. Grady has over two million subscribers to his video channel called Practical Engineering. We learn the remarkable tale about how he started and how he has evolved. Grady also reveals for the first time a new project. Grady is leading the way and exposing others to our built world.
Watch his videos and learn more about Grady and Practical Engineering here:
Transcript
Robert Osborne:
Welcome to The Outfall, where we share the backstories about our water world. This is Robert. In this episode, we talk to YouTube superstar Grady Hillhouse. Never heard of him? You should. Here he is explaining his latest video.
Grady Hillhouse:
So this video is an ode to the grossest and probably most underappreciated pieces of public infrastructure. I’m Grady, and this is Practical Engineering. In today’s episode, we’re talking about sewers.
Robert Osborne:
Grady has over two million subscribers to his video channel called Practical Engineering. We discovered his videos a year ago and loved them. But I didn’t realize how big Grady was until I mentioned to my 16-year-old son that we’d be talking to him. He was in awe and almost didn’t believe me. David, Amy, and I learn more about Grady, his channel, how he started, and how his creative process has evolved. Grady also reveals for the first time ever a new project. Enjoy.
David Ladner:
Tell us what it is that you do.
Grady Hillhouse:
Okay. In general, I make videos about civil engineering, and infrastructure, and the constructed environment. And usually, they are accompanied by a demonstration that I build in the garage to try and illustrate the principle on a small scale so that you can envision how it works at a large scale, like on very large infrastructure projects. So just about every aspect of the constructed environment is covered on my channel, from the electrical grid to soils, to water, to dams, to pipelines, just a little bit of everything. But I do focus on water because that’s my technical background, and that’s what I did for a number of years as a consulting engineer, and so, that’s where my passions lie.
Grady Hillhouse:
One of my favorites that I’ve done was on sinkholes. And it wasn’t even my idea to do a video like that; it was my wife’s. She just asked me one day how a sinkhole… I don’t understand what a sinkhole is or how it works. And it just sparked an idea in my mind because I had been building these demonstrations for a little while at that point, and it sparked an idea of how could I build something that could demonstrate that? And I came up with this idea in my head. I put it all together in the garage, and I plugged the pump in, and watched it happen. And it was a eureka moment. I just knew, at that moment, “Wow, this is so obvious.” Even I am starting to gain some intuition here about how this process works. And so, that’s one of my favorite videos just because the demonstration was so vivid and so clear and so easy to wrap your head around.
Robert Osborne:
Maybe explain a little bit about that. What was that demonstration? For the audience.
Grady Hillhouse:
Yeah. I can try to explain it.
Robert Osborne:
Yeah.
Grady Hillhouse:
It was really just a narrow PVC aquarium, like a narrow tank with a pipe running through it, but the pipe had a break, about a one inch break in it. And so, I filled the whole thing was sand.
David Ladner:
I did see that.
Grady Hillhouse:
And pumped water through the pipe. And because I had a break in it, it started to create, over time, some internal erosion, and it just grew and grew and grew and created a sinkhole. And I put a little pavement roadway over the top, a piece of parchment paper with a little toy car on top to demonstrate cause a lot of manmade made sinkholes are breaks and in wastewater lines below the roadway. I thought that would be kind of fun and it just gave it a little bit of, a little comic relief.
David Ladner:
Yeah, that’s cool.
Robert Osborne:
So what did your wife think?
Grady Hillhouse:
Yeah, she was thrilled to see it, to see how it works. I run almost all my ideas by her because I want the topics that I cover to resonate to a general audience, right? I don’t want to just make the deals for engineers and so, if something’s too technical or too in the weeds, she’ll just tell me right away. And I know I need to back away and kind of add some relevance or add some context to the video to make it more clear to a general audience.
Amy Anderson:
That’s what I think makes your videos reach such a great audience and such a sweet spot because I know scientists are notoriously bad communicators and we see the issues that come from that big disconnect between, we have this knowledge and then people accepting it and understanding, and it’s hard with something technical like engineering to have people say, oh yeah, I get that, or I get why that’s important. And to be able to bridge that gap is incredible to have something that’s interesting. And I think that you really have a skill in doing that. It’s like, oh, that actually makes a lot of sense. It’s not boring and textbook like, and don’t know if that’s something that you’ve always liked in communication or if it’s just something that…you have an idea and it ran away, but yeah. How did you get started and where did you come from or how does it evolve over time?
Grady Hillhouse:
That’s a great question. And I appreciate that. I really do. I feel more like I just stumbled upon something and it really has nothing to do with me. I mean, part of it is. Number one, infrastructure is something we all see, we all interact with every day. And so I just got lucky that I chose a career field that has application to so many people, and they don’t quite realize it. And so that’s a big part of it.
Grady Hillhouse:
But the other part is I mentioned my wife already, but she was, at the time that I kind of got started with all of this, she was a kindergarten teacher. I would get invited to career day and try to talk about civil engineering to these little kids. And obviously you don’t talk about friction angle and factor of safety and all that stuff to kindergartners, right? You boil it down and try to make it interesting. And as I was giving these presentations, I noticed how engaged the adults were, right? The teachers and the administrators. And it just kind of clicked that the average kindergartner knows just as much about civil engineering as the average adult does.
Amy Anderson:
That is probably very true.
Grady Hillhouse:
There’s no reason to act so dignified about it, right? I mean, civil engineers…half of us just think about dirt all day.
Grady Hillhouse:
It doesn’t need to be this grand esteemed profession. It’s something that is relevant to everyone. And so that eureka moment, to me, it freed me up to talk about civil engineering and my career and just science and technology and engineering in general in a more boiled down and approachable way for everyone basically.
Amy Anderson:
So, I would love to know the evolution of how these videos came to be. What was your first one like, and how did that evolve into what your recent ones are like?
Grady Hillhouse:
It all really started out with my father-in-law, who was moving out of his house into an apartment and had a bunch of woodworking tools that he didn’t need anymore, didn’t want any more. And so he asked me, do you want these? And like any red-blooded male, I said, yeah, I’ll take them. I had never taken a shop class. I didn’t know anything about woodworking or using power tools or anything. And so, what do you do? You get on YouTube and you watch videos.
Grady Hillhouse:
Up until that point, I had used YouTube as basically a search engine for videos, but as I was starting to watch these woodworking videos, I realized, oh, these are people who are putting up regular content. They’re building a community around the work that they’re doing. This is more than just a search engine, right? It’s a social media platform. And I was so interested and invested in that, that I wanted to be a part of it. And so my very first video that I posted and several of the ones after that were all about woodworking and the projects that I was making and those are still up if you want to go watch them. You can scroll to the very bottom of my channel and see my horrible woodworking videos.
Amy Anderson:
I love that you have them on there still.
Grady Hillhouse:
Yeah, I don’t want to delete them.
David Ladner:
So was the channel named as it is now, or that came later?,
Grady Hillhouse:
No. It was just my name, Grady. It was just named Grady Hillhouse. And then slowly…I mentioned the career days and I started mixing the woodworking and the engineering and stumbled upon that…Oh, it’s cool to build little demonstrations of engineering. And it was a slow progression. And if you got a few hours, you can go watch it in real time by yourself. But yeah, eventually I realized I was onto something. And so I rebranded the channel as Practical Engineering and decided I’m going to make videos about engineering and maybe they’ll feature some woodworking or some other type of building something. But the real focus is going to be on engineering.
Grady Hillhouse:
And then from there just over time, I’ve just paid attention to what the audience was interested in, what they responded to and also paid attention to what I was interested in and the topics that might resonate with more people. And so, yeah, it’s just slowly evolved. And actually this year I reached a point where… Part of it was, we had a baby last summer.
David Ladner:
Congratulations.
Grady Hillhouse:
Thank you. Appreciate that. So that changed the availability of my free time, of course, but it changed my perspective on life a lot too. Eventually I reached a point where I just could not keep up with everything, and so I decided that maybe this was the way where I could have a bigger impact on the world. I’m working on the channel full-time, and also, I signed a book deal, and so I’m working on a book as well that’s in the same vein as-
Robert Osborne:
Get out!
Grady Hillhouse:
Yeah.
David Ladner:
So Grady, you’re telling us, you’re telling us that you quit your day job.
Grady Hillhouse:
I did. And I’m on record on quite a few interviews saying that I would not do that. But really, it reached a point where I was going to have to choose. Either I’m going to keep working as a consultant, which is a job that I absolutely loved…I worked with an excellent team for a great company doing work that I really, really enjoyed, or I could keep producing the videos and doing that. And I just had to choose. And I chose to keep doing the videos. And I definitely miss being a consultant and working in engineering. It was a really important part of my life, but I really, really am enjoying what I’m doing now and having the freedom and the time to really go after the topics that I think are interesting.
Grady Hillhouse:
And it’s been a lot of fun so far.
David Ladner:
Yeah. That is cool. Congratulations on that-
Grady Hillhouse:
Thank you.
David Ladner:
…Cause I think that’s a dream that many people would like to achieve and then you’ve done it. Super cool.
Amy Anderson:
So tell us about your book.
Grady Hillhouse:
Yeah, the book, it’s not a publicly announced thing yet. Not that there’s anything wrong with talking about it, but the publisher hasn’t made a big announcement about it or anything, but it’s a book that’s going to be basically a field guide to infrastructure, so-
Robert Osborne:
Oh, Ladner!
Grady Hillhouse:
It’s almost like-
Robert Osborne:
Wow, David had this idea brewing.
David Ladner:
Yeah.
Robert Osborne:
That’s awesome!
David Ladner:
Tell us more.
Grady Hillhouse:
Every section basically is like a mini Practical Engineering video that’s got a ton of illustration. So basically it goes through the entire gamut of constructed environment, roadways, water and wastewater, electrical grid, everything, and is basically a 1500 word essay on some aspect, accompanied by a full page illustration with annotations-
Robert Osborne:
How cool.
Grady Hillhouse:
…and stuff like that. It’s meant to be a guide to stepping outside your house and paying attention to all the constructed works that are around you and understanding just a little bit about how they work.
Robert Osborne:
When do you think it’s going to come out? Next year?
Grady Hillhouse:
Yeah, it’ll be middle of next year, hopefully. Probably in the summer of 2021.
Amy Anderson:
That’s great. Who do you see the target audience for your book being?
Grady Hillhouse:
That’s a great question, and it’s something that I’ve wrestled about. Cause obviously book publishing industry is not something I’m very familiar with, but they have pretty bright lines between young adults and adults and children, whereas on my channel, I’m targeting everyone, just anyone who might be interested in it. That’s how I’m doing the book too, right? The audience that I’ve captured on YouTube is the perfect example of the audience that I’m trying to target with the book. But I see it being fun on road trips for kids to see things or pay attention to things that they otherwise wouldn’t pay attention to.
Amy Anderson:
Yeah.
Grady Hillhouse:
But also just like anyone who wants…I mean you guys know, especially even when you’re in school, you start to learn about all these different things and then you start paying attention and just notice-
Amy Anderson:
You see it everywhere.
Grady Hillhouse:
Yeah, you see things everywhere that you’ve never noticed before. And it makes your experience of being outside so much richer. You start to care and to notice things that you never had before, and it changes your whole perspective. And that’s the sentiment that I’m trying to capture with the book.
David Ladner:
Wow.
Grady Hillhouse:
And hopefully instill that on anyone who reads it. I know that’s a lofty goal but that’s really what I’m going for.
Amy Anderson:
I love that that’s the aim. That’s great.
David Ladner:
Wow.
Robert Osborne:
How do you work through your creative process?
Grady Hillhouse:
It’s definitely evolved over time. So when I went full time, I decided I was going to ramp up my production schedule to do two videos per month. And there’s been some growing pains with that. What I call the A videos, which get released the first Tuesday of every month, those are planned pretty far ahead of time. And they’re written-
David Ladner:
Wow.
Grady Hillhouse:
…the demos are built and they’re ready for the talking headshots all in one batch.
David Ladner:
Wow.
Grady Hillhouse:
Because for so long, I’ve used my spare bedroom as a studio, basically. And to set up the camera and the lights and all of that to shoot the talking headshots was so much effort that it just was easier to do a bunch at once. I do have an offsite studio that’s being built out right now so hopefully things will get a little bit easier in the future. Then, what I call the B videos, which I’ve been doing about current events or at least more journalistic topics like a specific event that happened, those are written, shot, edited, produced, everything within usually about three weeks and so they have a much more aggressive schedule and balancing those two has been a challenge for me but I have a lot of good skills from consulting and project management. I have a lot of intricate schedules put together and a lot of planning and a lot of ax-sharpening, I call it, to make sure that things stay on track.
Robert Osborne:
When I listen to you and talk, I mean, you’re in the media, right? Your days as an engineer are looking distant and more distant.
Grady Hillhouse:
I’ve never, never set out to do this, never planned for it. And in fact, if you would have asked me six months ago what I do for a living, what I’m going to do for the rest of my life, it wouldn’t be a civil engineer. I don’t know all the factors that coalesced to bring me here, but I’m very grateful for the position I’m in right now and really excited because it is so much fun to share what we do for a living and this aspect of the world that I think is so important to people who otherwise would have no exposure to it. And even me, like when I was a kid, I didn’t know any civil engineers and I didn’t have any exposure to the topic. And it took me longer than I would have hoped to realize that this was what was for me and this was what was important to me. I really hope that somehow through the channel, that more students are being exposed to civil engineering and hopefully being interested in and becoming passionate about the topic, too.
Robert Osborne:
Well, Grady, it’s embarrassing. I think you’re doing a better job than me with my son. So there you go.
Grady Hillhouse:
I’m certain that’s not true.
Robert Osborne:
If that doesn’t make you feel good, I don’t know.
David Ladner:
Well, here’s a scarier thought. I’m a professor and I worry that you’re doing better than me as a professor. What do you think? Is YouTube going to take the place of the classroom and people are going to stop paying tuition because they can learn it all on YouTube?
David Ladner:
I think this is a real thing that people are struggling with, but what’s your take?
Grady Hillhouse:
Yeah. I mean, it’s Ecclesiastes, right? There’s a time to give a lecture on friction angle and cohesiveness and all that. And there’s a time to build a cube of reinforced earth and run it over with your car, right?
Amy Anderson:
I love it.
Grady Hillhouse:
It’s a little bit…we’re targeting entirely different audiences and that’s not to say that there aren’t lessons that cross apply between the two, but no one’s studying for the PE exam using my videos. This has been a blast.
David Ladner:
Keep doing your amazing work. We’ll be watching.
Robert Osborne:
Yep, absolutely.
Grady Hillhouse:
Thanks.
Robert Osborne:
We want to thank Grady for joining us and allowing us to learn more about what he does. What a nice guy. Grady is leading the way and exposing others to our built world. If you’ve not seen his videos, click the link in the show notes. Watch one of the videos tonight and make sure you subscribe to his YouTube channel, Practical Engineering. Thanks again for listening to The Outfall. As always, we love to hear your comments. So if you enjoy our podcast, please help us. Subscribe on your favorite podcast player and share the podcast with a friend. We’ll see you next time.
