Construction Informer

We are…errrr…going to need a bit more money for this one: It is often difficult to bring a project in at the original estimate when you factor in changes and surprises. Still, it is seldom that the bill increases ten times the original amount. But that’s what happened with the Scottish Parliament building in Holyrood in 2004 and it was described at the time as the “most spectacular mismanagement of public finances ever.” There are more interesting examples of projects run amuck in the UK here. I’m not picking on the UK it was just an interesting read.

Fire and Smoke Detection Grows Brains: Frost and Sullivan, a company that helps clients accelerate their growth, completed an analysis that shows fire and smoke detectors as becoming more intelligent and offering new revenue streams for those in that business. Described as a “paradigm shift” these detectors are morphing into addressable, intelligent systems. Key findings are:

• Heat detectors are gaining market share over mechanical detectors;
• Photoelectric detectors accounted for 70 percent of revenues in 2006 and are anticipated to continue their march toward dominance over ionization detectors;
• Video-based smoke and flame detection will be gaining market share faster than contemporary detectors;
• Those selling these items should position their solutions as robust, reliable and effective.

Keeping the Art in Architecture: French architect Jean Nouvel is famous for buildings like the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the Arab World Institute in Paris. Now, at 62 he has garnered the coveted architecture honor, the Pritzker Prize. This prize is awarded by the Hyatt Foundation and the citation this time extolled the virtue of taking risk. Nouvel, it is said, is not one that can be categorized as he has no “immediately identifiable signature.” But he does have a great way of expressing how a building should fit where it is placed.

“The wind, the color of the sky, the trees around - the building is not done only to be the most beautiful,” he says. “It’s done to give advantage to the surroundings. It’s a dialogue.”

High Oil Prices Fund Drive For Tallest Building: Gulf Arab states are floating in so much cash from the high price of oil they are in a competition to build the world’s tallest man-made structure, and it looks like Dubai may end up coming in second this time. The Burj Dubai is planned for completion in 2009 and was going to be the tallest building but billionaire Prince al-Walid bin Talal of Saudi Arabia is going to outdo that with a mile high tower. Visitors will be able to see Africa from the top and it is expected to cost five billion pounds.

So, sharpen your pencils the prince wants to see bids sometime before July.

Technorati Tags: construction,building,tallest,expensive,UK,Saudi Arabia,Burj Dubai,fire,detectors,Nouvel,architecture,pritzker

Periodically I will post all downloads that are available on this blog in aggregate form. That way you can find them all in one place. These are a mix of items I have created that you might find useful along with some external links from previous posts that have broad appeal. All other external links will continue to reside in their associated articles.

Here is the owner selection checklist. It is a very detailed checklist that you can modify and provide to owners to help them not only keep on track with making their selections but also to help you locate those selections once they are made.

This is a sample estimate for siding and drywall in a fictional small building.

For those of you who use Microsoft Project here is a public housing renovation pre-construction plan. It could also be modified to serve other remodel planning needs. Here it is in Excel format although not as functional as the Project version.

This is an example of a short-form contract that can be used to add some speed when changes exceed the original contract scope.

Here is a roof detail example that shows all the members used in its construction.

This is the link to the finish levels of gypsum drywall.

Here is an estimate showing quite a few general conditions items.

The Associated General Contractors in mid October issued an alert about increasing construction costs.

Here’s the place to hear the podcast of the Bob Villa interview with the ACTE.

Here you can see the 2007 winners of the Canstruction competition.

The Solar Decathlon Architecture winners are here.

Construction noise is louder than you might think so here is one reference, and here is another.

Listen to the interview with Heather Rhoades about optimizing your construction website so more people can find you.

Tiny things are beginning to make big differences in construction. Learn more about nanotech materials in this podcast with George Elvin of the Green Technology Forum.

Learn the environmental aspects about drywall here.

Here’s a wellness program project schedule in MS Excel.

Start a wellness program at your company with the help of this MS Project file.

Review software and get an AMEX gift card. Contact Julie Brown at Tech Target.

Listen to an interview with Jim Upton on integrating data systems to increase efficiencies.

J.J. Keller and Associates can help out with meeting safety requirements.

This is a guide on how to build radon out of your projects.

Get the Orangelist Spring 2008 Construction Blog Directory the only human-compiled listing of construction blogs. This list contains just over 60 blogs that have been meticulously catalogued by a human being, not a ‘bot,’ spider or algorithmic directory generator.

In the list you will have access to each blog’s:

hyperlink;
Google Page Rank;
index of Consistency, Robustness and Originality;
keyword list describing the blog’s content; and
a complete list of the number of posts added each month for the duration of the blog’s existence.

ATTENTION: There are no home improvement or do-it-yourself blogs in this directory. This list is for those who are in construction businesses, or who offer products and services to construction businesses.

Many people probably missed it, or just thought it was more whining about nothing, but just before Thanksgiving last year the nation’s governors, National Governors Association, put out a report in conjunction with the National Association of State Auditors that claimed the nation’s states are in the worst financial shape they’ve been in since WWII.

Of course if the states are struggling, then you have to imagine many municipalities are having similar problems. If you add all the factors, including the lost taxes on swelling roles of foreclosed property, and lost sales taxes and capital gains with a slowing economy you have to assume states and cities will be looking for additional revenue streams and will be plugging holes in existing ones.

So it’s not surprising that the independent contractor issue would come to the front. New Jersey enacted a law in July 2007 to provide options for litigation when companies classify workers as independent contractors even though they more closely fit the definition of employees. We all know this is a tactic employed by both companies and individuals to avoid paying taxes on wages and to avoid the responsibilities that go along with employer/employee relationships. New Jersey figures it lost out on $15.9 million to its unemployment and disability funds as the result of 25,000 workers being classified as independent contractors when in fact they most closely resemble employees.

It’s going to be difficult for other states facing restricted budgets to resist going after this issue more aggressively. The National Employment Law Project estimates the use of independent contractors who don’t meet the requirements to be considered independent contractors decreases payroll costs (and therefore payroll taxes) by 15 to 30 percent across the country.

D.R. Horton got caught up in this recently when the New Jersey Regional Council of Carpenters brought a class-action suit against it for allegedly improperly classifying construction workers. This case has grown to become a union cause especially in the wake of the release of a statement allegedly made by a D.R. Horton executive. In that statement the individual is said to have remarked about ridding the job site of union workers and replacing them with people who are happy to work and who will work sunup to sundown.

I would be willing to bet there are a few things going on here that no one wants to speak of.

The states are looking for revenue streams but they don’t really want to go after big employers and risk the appearance of having an anti-business attitude. So by creating the framework, a law that allows anyone to sue for violations of that law, they then can make it possible for other interested parties to take the companies to task. 

Unions have a vested interest in making sure only union people work on jobs. Many union members are also very afraid of loosing work to those who will accept less pay and therefore price them out of the market. This not only includes independent contractors but it also includes new immigrants and illegal aliens.

Owners, the people who pay for buildings to be built, are notoriously disinterested in who builds the building as long as they get the cost they want. Contractors have to match the owners’ cost expectations, or let the work go to someone who can deliver that cost. So, independent contractors become a way to skirt certain costs and be more competitive.

So, as cash and resource-strapped states and municipalities look to solve their problems, and other vested interest parties like unions seek to address theirs, labor costs can be expected to increase at a faster clip then in the recent past. This is just another in a long line of indicators telling the industry to continue to get more efficient. It would also be a good idea for many to take a long hard look at how they classify and treat labor.

Going From Miles To Inches: Milestones have always been the typical yardstick used to assess not only progress but how closely to schedule a project is tracking. Now, the environmental and engineering consulting service EH&E is suggesting "Inchstones" might serve building owners better.

This approach is supposed to help with what the company calls an increasing trend toward building occupation before building completion. EH&E maintains tight construction schedules often force owners into buildings before the required heating, cooling, lighting and power systems are completely up and running. The company’s Inchstone Project Monitoring Program lets owners track and organize critical deliverables online. Commissioning engineer support and consultation is also available during the course of construction.

The company offers a white paper on the topic here that also includes topics like: the evolving definition of completion; the three stages of completion; the roles of contractor, engineer and building owner; effects of un-completion on building occupancy and performance; and using the Inchstone process.

Taking Building Energy Consumption to the Users: It isn’t easy to look at energy use data from buildings and make it meaningful at the individual level. So Siemens has married software that interfaces with its building automation system to bridge the gap.

Called GreenTouchscreen, a Quality Attributes Software, Inc. product, the program translates raw energy data into visual information that even casual observers can understand. The technology shows how much energy the building is using at a given time, and how much energy has been saved over time. But even more interesting is how the program shows the observer just what those energy savings mean. For example, they could view how many pounds of coal have been left unburned, or how much more electricity is available for playing X-Box.

"Most organizations, whether they are public or private, want to provide stakeholders with better information on their sustainability and green efforts," says Siemens Building Technologies’ Richard Walker, senior national manager - Environmental Solutions. "GreenTouchscreen offers us the ability to not only provide information on energy use and climate implications, but also on a broad variety of internal initiatives."

These screens are going to be popping up in schools also so students and educators can use them as interactive learning opportunities.

There seems to be a convergence of information going on regarding water and water quality these days.

In an earlier posts I covered some of the things construction operations do to spoil water supplies,  the things that happen when the water starts to run dry, and our seeming disinterest in the fact that the water we get from our taps is of such questionable quality that millions routinely buy bottled water, (of which much of that is of questionable quality, but that is a whole other topic).

In just the past two weeks we have now heard that it has been known for some time, but only recently been made public, that there are traces of pharmaceuticals in our water that can’t be removed through the normal water processing activities carried out by municipalities. More than two years ago we heard that pharmaceuticals that were getting into streams, ponds and other water sources were affecting the life cycles of frogs. Scientists say that as the frogs go, so go us. Since the recent reports of pharmaceuticals in public water supplies show the route taken by these substances, and that route takes them through the streams, ponds and rivers cycles, we now know the drugs have been in our drinking water for some time.

Of course no one knows, or maybe wants to say, what the effect of minute traces of drugs dripped into our systems over a period of years will do to us. Even though I’m not a scientist I can tell you it won’t be good, and I can say that without hesitation because I have seen these kinds of things play out over and over again. Whenever the "authorities" say they aren’t sure, you can bet your bottom dollar it’s not good. This is especially true when they know about something and don’t release that information to the public until someone uncovers it.

The trail doesn’t stop here, though. Now we hear there are communities in California that are toying with the idea of recycling their sewage. In a detailed report it is shown just how that is done and in effect the water ends up being as clean, or cleaner, then the typical stuff coming out of the tap.

We know that nature has been cleaning water forever. Take a look at a wetland. It is an amazing water filtration and purification system that allows waste in one end and clean-enough-to-drink water out the other end. Of course the public is having a real problem with the thought of drinking their own waste, and maybe other people’s as well. Somehow if you are drinking your own waste it is better if you just don’t know about it.

But what is really being missed in the waste-water-to-drinking-water plan is the amount of energy it is going to require to pull this off. Wetlands use plants and sunlight. The process being considered in California uses a complex array of PVC pipe, thin films, pumps, filters and, oh yes, a lot of electricity.

Here’s the bottom line for people who build. Water is life, so it is a great time to really consider how you use it, how you abuse it, how you can protect it and how you can increase awareness in others about those same things. And, if you are looking for a revenue stream in all of this I think you only need to use a little imagination.