Construction Informer

Ever since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 people have been able to take some deductions on their federal taxes if they improved their home’s energy efficiency. Now, one element of that program is set to expire because it wasn’t extended by Congress this year.

As of December 31 the 10% deduction for home improvements like installing Energy Star windows, attic insulation and air sealing products is no longer available. This tax break allows up to a $500 deduction for these energy efficiency improvements.

According to a news release by Johns Manville a homeowner poll showed that 23% of homeowners had taken advantage of the deductions. The research also found that 32% of homeowners thought their homes were energy efficient even though 78% had claimed their heating and cooling costs had increased in 2006.

Johns Manville offered some suggestions for taking advantage of the tax break in the final days.

• The US Department of Energy says that 40% of all air leaks in the average home are in the attic and that by better insulating that space homeowners can get a potential 30% savings on heating and cooling costs.
• Replace old exterior doors or add storm doors to reduce drafts and cut down on heated or cooled air from escaping.
• Replace old furnaces. Old equipment can be drastically lower in efficiency and thereby use more energy to do the same job that new equipment does.
• Install solar energy improvements like solar hot water and photovoltaics for electrical generation. This offers a tax credit of 30% or up to $2000.

If you’d like to assess your home’s energy efficiency the company offers a Home Energy Analysis tool online.

One of the trends resulting from the emphasis on building green is that the need for landscape architects is increasing. As a matter of fact the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts faster than average growth for this occupation through 2014. In 2004 landscape architects held 25,000 jobs even while six in 10 are self-employed.

It also seems that this field is moderately robust even in challenging economic times. The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) recently reported their members are busier than ever. Three out of four firms report steady or increased billable hours and four in ten are planning to hire more employees this quarter.

The BLS says this demand is fueled by the growing desire of people to have beautiful outdoor areas. Also, the rising cost of land requires ever more sophisticated landscapes. On the green side, managing storm water run-off and better management in general of our water resources is gathering more and more attention of landscape architects and those who fund projects. The involvement of landscape architects in early stages of plan development is more and more critical with the increasing focus on environmental regulations and zoning laws.

Then too there are unique green building concepts that fall to landscape architects. Green roofs, on-site water reclamation using wetlands, and the introduction of plants as regulators to the micro-climate around buildings are all things these architects tackle.

All of this means the job outlook is increasing the need for people to consider landscape architecture as a career.

The demand for landscape architecture services remains strong in the traditional markets, while it continues to grow in emerging areas, particularly for sustainable design services,” said Nancy C. Somerville, executive vice president and CEO of ASLA. “With only 30,000 landscape architects in the and the projected growth in demand for landscape architecture services, there are significant opportunities for young people considering entering the profession.” ASLA is working with the ACE Mentor program and other organizations to introduce the profession to prospective students, and will celebrate National Landscape Architecture Month in April 2008 around the theme “Discover Careers in Landscape Architecture.

Our search for the truth often leads us to the well-known conclusion that the truth is in the mind of the beholder. Often referred to as perceptions, these person-specific tidbits of truth become a person’s vantage point from which they make decisions. Once these perceptions are in place they are very difficult to change.

The really unique thing about perceptions is that you don’t even have to directly interact with someone to create them. People who observe you and your operations are constantly forming perceptions. In a way you are telegraphing those perceptions to them by the things you do, the things those who work with and for you do, and even by the things that don’t get done.

There are many ways a construction company telegraphs perceptions. Dirty, uncared-for equipment can create perceptions that you and your company are poor, uncaring, irresponsible, cheap, over-loaded with work or victims of a poverty mindset. People who don’t show up on time for things telegraph the perceptions that you and your company are disorganized, too busy, uncaring, undisciplined, discourteous and lazy. Those are just two examples and of course the list goes on and on.

Making excuses for things surprisingly doesn’t remove the perception. At best it stays in the person’s mind with a footnote to watch and see if the perception remains accurate over time. Worst, the person hears the excuse and adds that to the perception…you and your company are not only uncaring but you are also victims of circumstance and therefore should be regarded as generally unreliable.

If these assessments seem harsh you don’t have to look very far to see the evidence of their reality. Take a good long look at the perceptions you and your company are putting out there and then take a good long look at the clients you are attracting. For example, people with dirty beat-up trucks and equipment will find they are servicing clients with high expectations of low cost work. These same types of clients will demand more and more while not expecting to pay more.

If you ever find yourself complaining about your customers remember that you have asked for their business in large part by the perceptions you have telegraphed.

Although a lot of drywall comes from a naturally occurring material that is mined, calcium sulfate dihydrate, when it is disposed of it can end up becoming toxic waste. When you throw it away in a landfill in a moist climate hydrogen sulfide gas may be produced and when you incinerate it you get the release of a toxic sulfur dioxide gas.

Recent estimates show that the US produces 15 million tons of drywall each year and 12% of that is wasted during installation. From what I’ve witnessed I think that number might be a bit low. The speed at which rock hangers and finishers have to work in order to turn a profit is one of the contributors to this waste as every action is designed to minimize the amount of time spent finishing the installation. Most drywall waste comes from new construction but other sources such as demolition, manufacturing and renovation still account for 36% of all scrap drywall created.

Of course there is a whole range of subsidiary costs both in terms of money and in terms of time and the environment. Some estimates put the making of drywall as contributing 25 billion pounds of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere every year. The costs of transportation, collection, processing, handling and landfill tipping fees all become a part of drywall’s lifecycle costs.

Waste prevention can have a valuable impact on the amount of drywall that has to be disposed of.  Since drywall comes in standard sizes, designing buildings that have walls and ceilings that match those standard sizes is one option. Many people may not know that it is possible to order custom-sized sheets for non-standard applications, and substitutes like modular partitions for commercial buildings can also cut down on the waste.

There are other options for reusing wasted drywall. It can be used as forms for gunite applications and it can be donated to some local chapters of Habitat for Humanity. One other option to eliminate the need to dispose of the waste is to stash it in the wall cavities. There’s more on this in the NAHB Builder’s Field Guide. Currently about 20% of wasted, new drywall can be recycled and it is being used also as a soil amendment once the paper is removed. A University of Wisconsin scientist has advocated using it as a fertilizer for potato crops and it can also be used for growing mushrooms, and in forestry and mine reclamation, nurseries and city parks and recreational areas to name a few.

The gypsum industry is bullish on reducing and reusing wasted product. In its publication the Gypsum Association in Washington, DC tells the environmental story about Gypsum.

Now too, other gypsum alternatives are on the horizon. Serious Materials just received $50 million in funding and is coming out with a gypsum alternative in 2008. Called EcoRock, it uses 90 percent less energy to produce than standard drywall.

So, rock on…but watch the waste.

Some people point out that the lack of people to work in construction is more a problem of finding people with the right skills at the right time than it is with finding people. I was talking with a vice president at a busy light commercial/residential builder who told me he can’t find people with the right skills matched to experience. Those he hires right out of college don’t have any real-world experience and most often aren’t interested in getting any. At the same time he has a legacy workforce of superintendents who rose through the ranks and have difficulty adopting technology and embracing the concept of managing. So, they resort to putting on their tool belts when problems crop up instead of managing the situations.

There’s no doubt in my mind that a superintendent, or anyone who manages day-to-day construction activities needs to be steeped in building know-how. When I used to teach management to mid level supervisors the course work explained that knowing how to do something was unimportant from a managerial perspective and that a manager should be able to manage any type of activity, whether or not they have any experience at it. In an ideal world that should be true since the manager relies upon the skills and experience of the workers to ensure the details of the job are done appropriately. Where this seems to fall apart in construction is exactly at the worker level.

It’s not uncommon for a construction worker to have learned the skills informally from friends or relatives. You know this is true if you just do a mental survey of the crews who work with or for you. How many of them had any formal training in how to frame? How many had any formal training in building concrete form work?

Most likely, many, or most of your workforce fine-tuned their skills on-the-job and not necessarily on any of your jobs. Then too, how many learned things incorrectly, or learned incorrect things? On-the-job training in some ways is perhaps more valuable than formal training since it introduces the realities of the real world to the training session. However, if you want a standardized way of things being done, on-the-job training by itself only ensures a wide variety of standards.

The lack of standardization can make it very difficult for a manager with little or no real-world experience who now has to deal with managing crews that have multiple ways of doing the same thing. There are often many ways to correctly accomplish a particular building task so the person managing a construction job today at one site could very well see different techniques being employed at another site. Then, if you add in the differences in the sites, and the differences in the buildings you come to realize that a very large requirement for someone who manages construction is for them to have experience. But they also need to have modern world skills that extend beyond being able to use a stud finder and a cell phone.

To me, technical education seems like a rapid way to get people on the job who can manage a job. All skills, including management, could be taught in a technical environment, plus, real world experience could be a generous part of the overall curriculum.