Construction Informer

Imagine owning a home that can maintain comfortable temperatures in summer and winter without needing any heat or air conditioning. That’s the claim made by Marken Projects regarding the home below. It is a 2400 square-foot, four bedroom single family that consumes 90 percent less energy for heating, cooling and building operation than a typical home.

This home is being built in Vancouver, BC and the builders will seek LEED Home Canada Platinum certification. The home uses a European modular wood building system.

The extensive list of Green Building features includes a highly energy efficient heat recovery ventilation and geothermal system, a flat roof mounted Solar Photovoltaic (Electricity) and Solar Thermal system (Hot Water), a rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling system, a green herb garden roof, south oriented triple glazed windows and sliding doors and last but not least the use of renewable, low-VOC materials throughout the design, making it a super green home.

Marken describes itself as company with the goal to bring a fresh and forward-thinking approach to managing, developing and designing green projects across North America. The company is actively pursuing passive technologies that have been developed in Austria and Germany.

We are actually already working on a Passive House prefab collection with different designs and floorplans and are seeking a manufacturing partner here in Canada for this project. This concept is already well established back in Austria, said Alexander Maurer, founder of Marken. The concept is easily adaptable for multi family projects.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has extensive information on the design criteria for passive solar homes and includes these five elements in its literature.

• Aperture – or large glass window area facing within 30 degrees of true south;
• Absorber – something to well, absorb the heat like water or masonry and stone;
• Thermal Mass- the material behind the absorber that stores the heat;
• Distribution – systems for heat movement that employ conduction, convection and radiation; and
• Control – Shade, differential thermostats, vents, dampers, low-emissivity blinds and awnings.

By some accounts the US lags behind other countries, particularly the Scandinavian countries and Germany, in the construction of homes with passive designs. Earlier this year one source put the number of passive-design homes worldwide at 15,000.

There are some who insist there is no way for construction projects to go paperless, even as creative companies work to do just that. While contracts and other sensitive legal paperwork might persist in traditional form for the foreseeable future, there are paperless solutions today that are pushing the proverbial envelope when it comes to the collaborative necessities of construction projects.

One case in point is the 100,000 square-foot Overlook Center project in Waltham, MA, now in its final stages and being managed by William A. Berry & Son, Inc. (Berry). Berry, architects Perkins+Will, and the subcontractors on the job used Bluebeam PDF Revu to review and markup more than 42,000 pages of construction documents. The team claims it achieved a 1,557 pound reduction in the project’s carbon footprint. Berry is expecting the project will receive a LEED Innovation & Design Credit from the U.S. Green Building Council because of its paperwork reduction efforts.

Bluebeam PDF Revu is a PDF creation, markup and editing solution and I was curious about the challenges Berry might have faced in trying to pry the paper from the participants’ desperate grips. But, according to Jake Chace, LEED AP project manager for Berry, it was a snap.

Everything went well and pretty much as we planned. We were able to do submittals, RFIs, etc. It wasn’t difficult to get the subcontractors on board. Some of them were already using it, and if they weren’t, we just walked them through it, and they had no problem working from the PDF.

Chace said initial resistance was nonexistent as people were “very open to using Bluebeam.” There were also only a couple of exceptions to going paperless.

Hard samples, such as carpets, color palettes, flooring, ceilings, etc., still had to be shipped or hand delivered. Also, we did not use it for contracts.

In a press release Berry said it chose Revu due to its specialized features for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) professionals. Berry claims that unlike other redlining tools, Bluebeam PDF Revu includes industry standard markups and takeoffs, an exclusive Tool Chest for storing custom annotations, a drawing comparison feature, integrated tracking, and tablet PC compatibility. When combined, Berry claims these features enabled all project documents –submittals, RFIs, punch lists and more – to be reviewed and redlined in a light-weight, universal file format.

To ensure project-wide adoption, Berry and Bluebeam jointly trained all parties on best practices for PDF markup and editing. Chace credited communication, and the support of the CM with the overall success of the effort.

We communicated well in advance about using the software on this project. Our IT department was very involved and provided a lot of support. The communications and the support from the CM side were critical to user adaptation.

Berry created a blueprint for paperless workflows that is being replicated on all of its future projects. Berry is also in the process of putting together a training document for first-time Bluebeam PDF Revu users.

We’ve used Bluebeam in the past and walked new users through it,” said Chase. “Once it’s completed, this training tool will help document the process we used.

Others involved with the project have some enthusiastic expectations for the kinds of green advantages waiting in the wings as paperless construction projects blossom.

The paperless project has been the holy grail of the construction industry,” said Richard Lee, CEO of Bluebeam Software. “Berry has proven that it is possible to go virtually paperless and engineer an electronic workflow that can be duplicated using Bluebeam technology. By recognizing paperless workflows in the LEED standard, the USGBC can incentivize green builders to follow Berry’s lead in process sustainability, and affect real and significant change industry wide. Using Berry’s results as an example, we estimate that the USGBC would be responsible for the reduction of over 25 million tons of CO2 emissions annually.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. – Edward R. Murrow

The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe. – H.L. Mencken

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. – Thomas Jefferson

The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed, but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. – John F. Kennedy

The trouble with free election is, you never know who is going to win. – Leonid Brezhnev

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive. – Henry Steele Commager

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security. – Benjamin Franklin

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross. – Sinclair Lewis

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too. – Somerset Maugham

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. – James Baldwin

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. – Voltaire

The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? – Pablo Casals

When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. – William O. Douglas

It’s that time of the year again – time to run down the latest in ways to keep cool on the job site. Of course if you have a job trailer with air conditioning then just stay in there!

But for the rest of you there are a number of helpful options out there in the marketplace that say they will help you keep your cool. None of them will work for those of you who are hot headed. You need some anger management classes first.

There is a lot of talk about evaporative cooling neckbands, headbands, wristbands and even vests. These items all have some crystals in them and after being soaked in water they begin to keep you cool as the water they hold evaporates over time. You can reuse them thousands of times.

Then there are the standard sweatbands that mop up the sweat and help keep you cool by preventing the sweat from getting into your eyes. Some models of these will attach to your hard hat’s webbing. These also come with the crystals and provide up to 10 hours of cooling from one soaking.

If you want to get into a higher tech solution for keeping your head cool you can go with one of the hard hat cooling systems. These usually use a fan mounted to the rear of the hat that blows air up and over the top of your head. They are sold by companies that claim the upper part of hard hats can get to 160 degrees F. They often run on rechargeable batteries and come with a wall adapter for recharging. They will attach to most short, and long brimmed hard hats.

Another way to stay cooler is to block more of the sun from hitting your body. That’s the idea behind the extenders and visors sold for hard hats. Essentially they make your hard hat into a shade tree. Well, not quite, but the cooling effect is reported to be good. The visors will help to reduce the UV rays that get into your eyes. I guess there might also be some added protection from falling objects.

What are your secrets for staying cool? Write a comment and let us know. It’s going to be a long, hot summer.

I was recently talking to a contractor who was telling me about a dispute he was in as a result of the parties involved having different ideas about what was expected. This post from 2007 delves into situations like these.

There are many times when expectations line up and two people look at a finished job and agree that it is acceptable. Then there are other times when two people look at a job and disagree as to whether it is acceptable. Here’s a case in point. A small warehouse job had several utility-type rooms that called for moisture resistant drywall. The drywall contractor finished the rooms with tape embedded in compound and one coat of compound over joints, angles, fastener heads and accessories. There were some tool marks.

The owner took exception saying he wanted the drywall prepped for paint. Because there were no standards like ASTM cited in the contract documents the determination as to what constituted the appropriate finish was left up to the “eyes of the beholders.”

The drywall contractor had done one building of this type before and had used a Level 2 finish in similar areas in that building. So, she assumed the same on this building and that’s what she delivered. Meanwhile, the owner had no plans of tiling walls in those rooms and was instead going to paint. The owner wanted a Level 4 finish where, “all joints and interior angles have tape embedded in joint compound and two separate coats of joint compound applied over all flat joints and one separate coat of joint compound applied over interior angles. Fastener heads and accessories shall be covered with three separate coats of joint compound. All joint compound shall be smooth and free from tool marks and ridges.”

On these pages we’ve touched on the subjects of punch lists, contract specifications and estimating.Standards is one of the places where all three of these converge. In the case of punch lists, having some specific standards can take some of the potential subjectivity out of the determinations as to what is acceptable. When it comes to estimating you should know what standard you have to achieve and not leave it up to assumption. If these aren’t spelled out in the contract documents then it will be difficult to do a fair estimate.

The issue above was resolved when the drywall contractor went ahead and finished the areas to the owner’s satisfaction. She lost some money but got several referrals from the owner so in the end she considered herself ahead.

Across the construction landscape today there are countless jobs that take place with little or no standards spelled out. Disputes are usually settled by one or the other party accepting a lower standard than expected, or losing some money. Everyone in the construction process ought to consider from time to time if the lack of standards in their operations is worth the time and effort spent in not specifying them.