Construction Informer

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Welcome to the Construction Informer. This is the podcast for October 11, 2010

And boy do we have a lot of news today. News that you just can’t do without if you’re in construction.

And it starts with a novel way to build a retaining wall. Apparently a company called GeoStructures, a design-build contractor with solutions for integrated foundation improvement, earth support and wall construction on commercial, industrial and transportation projects, had to build 5500 square feet of retaining wall where adjacent properties and tight easements ruled out post and panel, or tie-back approaches.

So, the company chose a soil nailing system using top-down excavation on five-foot increments, installing 230 epoxy-coated soil nails, applying shotcrete to temporarily confine the soil between the nails, and then attaching precast concrete panels from the bottom up. You can fit a backhoe with a special drill motor that drills the nails into the soil on a rather steep angle.

The construction moved along at a brisk pace because of some special hardware the company used to attach the precast panels to the nails. All of this is well detailed and you can see an animation of how it all goes together at GeoStructures’ Web site. Use the link at the bottom of the player window.

Well, we’ve been hearing about nanotechnology invading the construction industry now for at least a few years and then too there are already nanotech products on the market such as paint-on insulation. Researchers at Rice University say that nanomaterials will have a greater impact on the construction industry than any other sector of the economy, after biomedical and electronics applications.

The researchers cite dozens of potential applications and according to an article at Big News Network,

nanomaterials can strengthen both steel and concrete, keep dirt from sticking to windows, kill bacteria on hospital walls, make materials fire-resistant, drastically improve the efficiency of solar panels, boost the efficiency of indoor lighting and even allow bridges and buildings to ‘feel’ the cracks, corrosion and stress that will eventually cause structural failures.

We’ve also been hearing about the potential downsides to nano products and the researchers say that NOW is the time to start addressing those concerns. It seems nanomaterials might run into environmental problems at the ends of their life cycles, as in the case of titanium dioxide particles that on the one hand will stop bacteria from growing on windows and solar panels but that could also very easily disrupt the activities of beneficial bacteria at the end of the product life cycle if not disposed of properly.

The researchers recommend considering the entire product’s life cycle and making sure it can be recycled or reused rather than thrown away. Of course, that forethought has to happen now, before these products are in widespread use.

It’s kind of amazing how even after so much value has been stripped out of the housing market that there are still places where housing is not affordable. One place singled out by the Urban Land Institute that fits that description is Boston. Its report, “Priced Out: Persistence of the Workforce Housing Gap in the Boston Metro Area examines the availability of for-sale and rental housing near six major employment hubs in the Boston area, specifically in terms of housing that is affordable to workforce households, or to those with incomes ranging from 60 percent to 100 percent of the area median income (AMI). Approximately 23 percent – or more than 600,000 households fall in this income range (according to 2008 data from the U.S. Census Bureau). The analysis was based on proximity of workforce housing within a 30- to 45-minute in-traffic commute of the employment centers of downtown Boston, Route 128 North, Route 128 West, Framingham, Route 128 South, and Route 3 North.”

So, “while the household median income for the Boston metro area ranks relatively high compared to other U.S. metro areas ($81,180 for a family of three, $90,200 for a family of four), there is currently a shortage of about 25,000 housing units affordable to workforce households near each of the six employment centers. This number is expected to rise over the next ten years by an additional 11,000 units, as growth in workforce households continues to outstrip the region’s ability to build housing that is affordable to those households.”

The organization says while the rentals in the areas are sufficient at the time, that’s not going to continue since “the rents that workforce households can pay are not high enough to support new high-rise or mid-rise construction – the product types that current land prices require to be economically feasible.”

The answer to the problem, according to the Urban Land Institute lies with incentives “to help offset the high cost of land, entitlement and construction,” otherwise “the production of new housing will be positioned with prices well beyond the financial wherewithal of the vast majority of workforce households making the ability of the market to build its way out of what it calls a housing affordability crisis,” unlikely.

And, this just in from CleanEdge, a firm that bills itself as “the world’s first research and advisory firm devoted to the clean-tech sector.” It released a report that “highlights clean-tech’s hottest sectors, cities, and employers; the industry’s most comprehensive study of median clean-tech job compensation levels; details of China’s meteoric clean-tech surge; and five key trends shaping the clean-tech industry.”

The 15 metro areas stateside that are primed for clean-tech jobs are: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Denver, Washington DC, San Diego, Houston, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Atlanta, Dallas, Portland and Sacramento. Keep in mind that those are areas, so when the report names Dallas it includes Fort Worth and Arlington, and when it mentions San Francisco, it includes Oakland and San Jose.

In what may be another sign of the U.S. loosing its edge, the report talks about how progressive China has become in the clean tech arena. The cofounder and managing director of CleanEdge had this to say:

China has risen from clean-energy neophyte to global clean-energy powerhouse over the past five years,” says Ron Pernick, cofounder and managing director of Clean Edge. “China is now home to six of the top 10 global clean-tech pure-play employers, up from just three a year earlier. China has become the country to watch, analyze, and, at times, emulate. Ignoring China’s clean-tech ambitions and activities puts one’s own clean-tech initiatives at great peril.

You can download the report from the link showing in the player, or from the post on the blog.

And that’s it for this edition of the Construction Informer podcast. Thanks for listening, and until the next time…build it well.