Construction Informer

As temperatures soar keeping cool on a construction job can be challenging. The State of Washington has backed away from some requirements in its battle against heat stress in the wake of a lot of complaints that they were going too far. Gone is the requirement that employers need to maintain temperature records, and the state has also simplified details regarding training and educating workers on heat-stress and implementing accident prevention programs.

However, the rules that kick in at 89 degrees if people are working in direct sun wearing regular clothes are still in effect. At that point employers have to provide at least a quart of water per hour to each employee, provide shaded rest areas and have a written plan to prevent heat stress. Last year the state uncovered and fined employers for 860 violations. Four people have died of heat stroke in that state since 1997 and hundreds have been hospitalized. There are other requirements based upon the other kinds of clothing that may be worn, like hazmat suits.

Things get really hot under a hard hat. Harvard Medical School says 30 percent of a person’s body heat is attributable to the head. Now, a company called Salisbury has released a lithium-powered fan for hard hats. The device has a computer chip that controls timed released bursts of air into the cavity space of the hat. The unit operates for one minute on and four off. There is also a glove-friendly manual switch for those times when you want to be in charge of the cooling.

As you might expect though there are other options for keeping a cool head. Erogodyne has some interesting items with no moving parts. The company claims its bandanas and headbands, triangle hats and hard hat inserts use evaporative cooling to tame the heat for 24 to 48 hours. It isn’t clear what happens after that time. The company also has cooling vests, wrist sweatbands, hydration packs and an item called a High Performance Cap that will also fit under a hard hat. These offerings are also tailored to North America since you can get bandanas with the U.S. flag, Canadian flag and Mexican flag on them. There are also many more designs for those of you in other places.

Now that summer is officially here it’s a good time to consider how you are helping your people keep their cool.

The on again, off again Farm Bill has been passed and represents an almost historical event since it may be the only time both houses of this Congress have managed to over ride a presidential veto. Anybody who reads the bill would come away wondering about many of the expenditures because even though the title is Farm Bill there is an awful lot in it that has little to do with farms.

Included in the bill is an amendment to the U.S. Lacey Act. This famous legislation was enacted in 1900 and was originally aimed at protecting wildlife in the U.S. from illegal commercial hunting. In later years it has been used to combat illegal fishing in U.S. waters and is the primary law targeting illegal interstate, or foreign, trade in illegally-taken species. This most recent amendment to the act targets the importation of illegally harvested forest products.

The forestry industry has been behind this all the way, along with the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and others. The EIA has some interesting undertakings including an effort to stop the creation and sale of tiger bone wine.

Currently, all the illegally acquired forest products across the globe compete with legal forest products in the marketplace. So, as we all know, things that are illegal often have a cheaper price tag than those things that are legal. That creates a market for them that undercuts the sales of the legal products.

One report estimates that U.S. forestry companies loose $460 million a year because of these illegal products flooding the world market. But perhaps the greatest damage is what it does to the world’s forests and the people and other life forms that rely on them. Deforestation is also blamed for 20 percent of the global annual green house gas increases.

Now, anyone who imports wood products to the U.S. will have to prove they are from legal sources and will also have to declare the species and country of origin for any plant or plant product.

This is a piece of legislation that appears to make everyone happy. It also represents a step by the U.S. to once again begin to lead the world, instead of trying to drag it. That’s because the enactment of this amendment to the Lacey Act makes the U.S. the first country in the world to ban the import, sale or trade of an illegally harvested commodity.

And that is certainly cause for reflection.

Every year 600 or more exhibitors gather at the PCBC in San Francisco to showcase their homebuilding wares. More than 25,000 attendees including contractors, developers, architects and manufacturers also go there to see what’s new and take advantage of seminars and networking opportunities. 

Nestled into the show is an annual competition of "cool" products and the 2008 winners have been announced. There is a green category, a consumer category and an industry category. You can check all of the winners out here, but I’m going to focus on a few of the Industry winners.

• FAFCO Sungrabber Solar Hot Water System - forget those bulky units that ended up all yellow and leaking on your roof. These systems are thin, billed as affordable and claim to reduce hot water heating bills by 50 percent.
• Dow Building Solutions’ Styrofoam Structural Insulated Sheathing - combining structural bracing, insulation and water resistive barrier in one step this product will surely please everyone who hates to keep returning to yet another step on the same part of the building.
• KleenDeck’s KleenWrap - protect those subfloors during construction with this 20-cents-per-square-foot clear, thin, skid and tear resistant, breathable and recyclable material. It also removes virtually all particulate air pollution.

What will they think of next.

Every time a new generation begins to wedge itself into the status quo of the older generation the pundits issue reports, surveys and op-ed pieces (and I guess blogs now) about how the new generation is so different than the one it is succeeding. But first the new generation has to be given a name.

And so we have Generation Y. Depending upon what you choose to read this generation, (born between 1977 and 2002), is:

• going to break absolutely everything that has been built up by the entrenched and venerable earlier generations; or
• finally define a healthy mix of personal and business life; or
• deteriorate into homelessness and despair as they simultaneously carry the weight of the previously negligent generations while stubbornly holding onto their total un-acceptance of how the world really works.

If you want to know more about this generation in a short article you can read it all here.

I have talked to construction project mangers who have some of this generation on staff. I’ve supervised a few myself. Are they really that different? Here are some of the things being reported that they want.

• Flexible work schedules
• Recognition for jobs well done
• Creative challenges
• Fair and direct managers
• Ongoing learning

Hmmmm, sounds like most people would want those things. The ones who say those are the things they want are the ones to hire since they are the confident producers who will deliver if they are given the encouragement and tools. Other things being reported that Generation Y wants include:

• Promotion within a year
• More vacation and personal time
• More pay

The ones who claim this list are the ones you should ask to check back with you in a few years. By then, if they have been earning their way in the world and have amassed enough experience and skills so their contribution to your business will be significant, they should be ready for those perks.

They said the Boomers were going to change everything. Well they didn’t. They said Gen X was going to break everything. Well they didn’t, or at least not yet. Mainstream Gen Y probably wants what everyone else does, except just a little more. The one I’m getting concerned about though is Generation Z.

It almost seems like an oxymoron to develop green guidelines for landscapes. After all, they are green already. But of course we all know that isn’t really the case when it comes to the land where landscapes are installed after a building is constructed.

By the time the building is finished the soils have been moved around, compacted, spilled upon and generally mistreated. Other parts of existing landscapes are also damaged by the wholesale removal of vegetation and changing the way rainwater interacts with the site. In our drive to maximize the number of buildings per acre we have created zones of buildings with postage stamp-sized exterior spaces filled with concrete, pavement, pavers, and a predictable parade of plants that can survive in unnatural surroundings.

But there is movement afoot to add some sanity to the building process when it comes to the ground, the water and the plants. The Sustainable Sites Initiative has been established to become a stand-alone tool for site sustainability. Maybe you didn’t realize it but:

• When soils are disturbed or removed it vastly undermines their abilities to handle water effectively and to sustain plant life;
• Compaction of soils means high run-off rates that lead to other problems on other sites; and
• Disturbing and removing vegetation alters the micro climate at that site, disrupts the activities of wildlife and pollinators and it also inhibits the filtration of air and water pollutants.

This is going to become the "LEED" of the landscape world and the U.S. Green Building Council has already said it supports the effort and plans to adopt the metrics that come out of the organization’s efforts.