Construction Informer

We are continuing to see questions being raised about those little tiny structures that we know of as manufactured nano particles. Within the nano-technology world they make up things like tiny carbon tubes that add strength to reinforcing steel in concrete. Other forms of nanotechnology structures are showing up in paint, glue and as additives to coatings that will extend the insulative qualities of those coatings along with the surfaces they are applied to.

In a recent study by the University of Edinburgh/MRC Center for Inflammation Research scientists compared carbon nano-tubes to asbestos in terms of their potential effects on humans who are exposed to them. Apparently the tiny structures not only look like asbestos fibers but in the study they were demonstrated to behave like them as well. A report from a research lab in Japan added to the decision by that country’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to issue guidelines in working with nanomaterials. The U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) completed research showing carbon nanotubes caused fibrosis in the lungs of mice after being inhaled. In addressing the larger picture of nano safety, since 2003 the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) has been warning of potential risks going unknown just because there is an absence of a coordinated effort to assess those risks. Nano materials however don’t just come in a carbon form. There are other kinds like silver and metal oxide.

A few months ago I ordered a nanotech powder that you mix into paint and it makes the paint become a reflective insulator, in effect reflecting heat away from surfaces. The web site I ordered the product from claimed there were no dangers in handling it and no special precautions necessary. I have to admit I was later a bit surprised by that because of its superfine nature. When I opened the bag and some of the material puffed out I grabbed a mask just to try to minimize the amount I might inhale in case some went airborne again. In the absence of any kind of labeling on the container as to the appropriate type of respirator to use it is just a guess as to whether the mask I used was adequate.

Nanotech products currently show up in construction in a number of forms. PEN is keeping an inventory of nano products and it reports the materials are in tool batteries, glue, wood sealer, paint, insulation, and glass. Many might assume that once incorporated into finished products these materials are basically inert and therefore would offer no threats. But without any kind of scientific evaluation showing how the products react to normal use over time, and extreme situations like fire, there would appear to be a gap in necessary information allowing us to safely make those assumptions. One Massachusetts Institute of Technology research initiative found that carbon nanotubes actually contained impurities like chromium and lead. The other appropriate question has to do with life cycle of these materials. What happens to the materials and products they are incorporated into at the end of their useful lives?

NIOSH’s role appears to be primarily focused on the manufacturing aspects of working with nano particulates and not with the aspect of working with the finished products. Still, the agency’s recommendations at this time might be wise to heed in either place.

Generally, in a workplace where exposures may occur to materials whose potential for health effects is not well understood, well-established principles of occupational safety and health would suggest minimizing exposure through the use of controls. Those controls, in traditional order of preference, include engineering controls, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment.

There is some software designed specifically for construction that works specifically with a tablet PC. One in particular from Vela Systems uses modules to automate common tasks like filling in a punch list, commissioning, creating change orders and tracking issues. Basically the tablet PC replaces the clipboard and uses this software to not only make tasks easier but also more instantly available to others involved in the processes.

I began wondering about these tablet PCs and about their ability to withstand the rigors of a construction site.

At MobileDemand I found some rugged tablet PCs that have been tested using MIL-STD-810F. You should be aware that these military standards allow some "tailoring" by the testing parties so that real world use is closely simulated. The xTablet T8600 has a backlit numeric keypad with navigational buttons, a 7 hour battery, and a built-in bar-code reader. One of the toughness tests meant the thing was dropped 26 times from a height of three feet onto a piece of plywood laid over concrete. The display is a little bigger than 8 inches diagonal. One price I saw was $3700 (rounded up).

General Dynamics offers the Gobook featuring a touch screen, up to four integrated wireless technologies, high contrast so you can better see what’s on the screen while in bright sunlight, and the ability to keep on running even when its fan is underwater. This one is tested using the same MIL-STD 810F and complies with standards relating to operating in hazardous materials areas. Gobook has an 8.4 inch display and will cost somewhere around $3200. Another interesting feature I saw was a hard drive heater allowing it operate at -20 degrees centigrade, otherwise the boot temp is 0 degrees centigrade.

Xplore Technologies has a few offerings and I took a close look at the iX104C2. Once again the unit is tested to MIL-STD 810F. The screen like the Gobook is a touch screen so you can use the stylus or fingers. Battery life here is three and a half hours although if you get the optional extended life battery you get five hours of operating time. The display is a couple of inches larger than the other two above. This one has an optional snap-on GPS module that the company says has excellent performance even in urban canyons and places with limited sky view.

The prices I found on the xTablet and the Gobook were from a third party page that was comparing these kinds of PCs. It was dated January 2008 but half of the product links weren’t active any more. None of the companies showed their prices on their own web sites. I don’t know about you but whenever I come across a company selling something that doesn’t want to even give me an idea of what it costs I have to wonder about their motivations. Am I supposed to guess at the cost? Perhaps I’ll just keep them guessing about whether or not I’ll buy it.

This is the final in a series of posts featuring an interview with Frank Dalene, chief financial officer of Hamptons Luxury Homes Inc.

In your editorial in Builder/Architect you mentioned manufacturers using deceptive marketing practices to represent their products for improper uses. Can you share any specifics about that so people can get an idea of the ways this sort of thing happens?

On a certain house wrap if you look at the manufacturer’s specifications it says bulk water hold out. What does that mean? Does it mean that some of the water is let through, but the bulk is not? I don’t know and that is part of the problem. I went to a trade show and a distributor of that same house wrap had a sign on an easel that said the Western Red Cedar Bureau endorsed that particular house wrap. But in reality that house wrap has been known to have problems with extractives from wood breaking it down and a University of Massachusetts study pointed to cedar products being the biggest culprits. So even though the sign said the Western Red Cedar Bureau endorsed this product what they failed to mention to you is that the Western Red Cedar Bureau said you could use cedar with this product as long as you seal it on all sides. And if you go to the manufacturer’s specifications it also says that in the small print. That is deceptive in my mind. But that is just one example. There are plenty of products out there with green labels and you know they’re not green, and so I think the movement has to start policing itself.

After an owner makes a conscious choice to build green how can they know their builder is using truly green materials and practices without having to spend a lot of time overseeing and checking on things?

They have to hire a builder with integrity and honesty. We build homes for the vacation home market so there are times we are building homes for people in England or Switzerland. They sign a contract with us and they have a date set when they are coming back and the house will be done. Nobody needs to oversee us or check on us. We are all self motivated and when we make a commitment we keep it. So they should try to hire that kind of builder. There are also more and more green building verifiers and certifiers being trained so that is another way to do it. I think it is also good to bring a consultant in for a home owner.

On a side topic, do you have any advice for builders in weathering challenging economic times?

We have been out in the Hamptons for 30 years we have been through three economic down cycles and the best advice I have is to cut the fat out. We as builders during the good times tend to get fat. A lot of times as we build our companies we have a tendency to delegate more and not work as hard as we should. It is remembering where we came from and being willing to go back.

This is the third in a series of posts featuring an interview with Frank Dalene, chief financial officer of Hamptons Luxury Homes Inc.

Besides the two web sites that are planned to be launched by Hamptons Green Alliance what other initiatives will the group undertake to help reveal to the general public what building green really means?

We are already building cooperative and collaborative relationships with other groups, and we are not a competing group. We also want to be politically active. So for example in New York state we can currently only do 10kw photovoltaics and so we want to work on increasing that. I sat on the committee in East Hampton to develop the East Hampton energy savings program which passed unanimously. That was really neat because I got the Long Island Builders Institute to come out and support it. The East Hamptons have always been very environmentally conscious and we have had some radical environmental groups. So it was really refreshing to see the environmental activists stand up in the public hearings to praise the builders for supporting an environmental issue.

Do you see the Hamptons Green Alliance becoming a model for other communities? Is there a possibility Hamptons Green Alliance might license/franchise itself to other locations?

We don’t see ourselves licensing or franchising this since we are a non-profit organization. We can see us forming chapters in other communities. That is a very good possibility along with simply collaborating with groups in other communities. We are going to be an open educational forum with the purpose to educate the public and what we would love to see is collaboration with other communities around the country.

There have been some builder groups struggling with the growing tendency for regulatory bodies to mandate green. From a builder’s perspective what is it about mandated green building requirements that doesn’t sit well with you?

We have several townships that have mandated it and that’s the reason we developed the East Hampton energy savings program. One of the issues was that Energy Star and  the green building requirements are voluntary programs and they were designed as voluntary programs. When you mandate them you are making them mandatory in order to get a certificate of occupancy and so you will most likely have an outside third-party inspector inspecting the same house that a municipal building inspector also inspected. I believe this is a conflict of interest. Here is an example. I went to a trade show and an insulation contractor said to me that if I used his sealing system that since he was a Home Energy Rating System (HERS) inspector he could guarantee the home would pass the floor and door tests. So if the HERS rater is also the installing contractor, then there is a potential conflict of interest.

What would be great is if the building inspectors would get certified. They are already inspecting for license and safety issues, so they are already taking that responsibility. This is just some additional training and I think it would be a much smarter way to proceed. Especially if it is going to become mandated and I believe it eventually will.

Stop by tomorrow for the final installment of this interview with Frank Dalene.

In this second in a series of posts featuring an interview with Frank Dalene, chief financial officer of Hamptons Luxury Homes Inc., we begin with a description of two different approaches to geothermal systems the company has installed. 

We have been doing geothermal since the late 80s and in this area we have a lot of sand and gravel and we have a water table that is very high, so most of ours are open loop geothermal. So we are taking water out of a well and then putting it into a dispersion well. We did a 17,000 square foot house on the ocean in the early 90s and we were going to put in a well until we found that we had salt water intrusion. Since we had a four-inch public water main that ended right there at the property we did all the calculations and it turned out it did pay to use public water as a water source for cooling that house. It also made a lot of sense because with salt water there would be some impact to the equipment.

In your estimation what should be a builder’s overriding reason for building with green practices?

I think number one it should be about the builder being an environmentalist and having a positive impact on the environment. The second reason would be that it does increase the quality of the home.

When you talk about the green building movement coming like an "out-of-control freight train" what are the out-of-control aspects?

As products come to the market it takes time for those products to be proven. We are right now adopting means and methods and we are accepting products very quickly before they have the benefit of being tested over time. I believe there are going to be some product liability issues.

Anyone who has been building long enough has seen products come and go and maybe has been stung by certain products and had to go back and replace them. I think we have all been there. In this green movement everybody is putting green labels on everything and not everything is good. It is coming on us very quickly. This is that freight train. I saw your web site and you are doing a great job informing people and that is what our purpose is with the Hamptons Green Alliance. To educate and inform people so we can get this train under control.

I also believe there are going to be side effects. For example, we are building thermos bottles for homes today. They are really air-tight. Here in the Northeast we are building homes out of wood frame construction. Wood needs to breathe and depending on what the climate is, based upon where it is located in the country, there are going to be different effects.

We have a program on Long Island called the Energy Star program and it was was being supported by the local power authority. I went to their training and they explained to us how we could use the bathroom fans on timers for the air exchange. That’s leaving a lot to chance. What if homeowners don’t maintain their homes? Who is making sure that these systems are continuing to operate? What if a homeowner doesn’t like the sound and disconnects it? When it breaks are they going to fix it? Now you have a thermos bottle with no air exchange. I don’t think that is wise. There is nothing wrong with having a controlled indoor environment, however ventilation has got to be part of the permanent system.

The things we went through with the mold issues are another example. We have been dealing with mold since we were in the cave and all of a sudden it became a toxic killer. But really for most people it is an allergen. So a lot of that was blown out of proportion and it affected a lot of builders. and a big part of the issue was that we were building the houses too tight. Now without the proper ventilation there are all of these potential liability issues. 

Stop by tomorrow to read more of this interview with Frank Dalene.

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