Construction Informer

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For you people who do estimating there’s now a new option in terms of a touchscreen monitor. Maxwell Systems has come out with of a touchscreen monitor that allows you to do your estimating by touching the screen. You can do digital takeoffs directly from the monitor, you can annotate over computer-generated images, and the adjustable stand lets you find the most comfortable angle to work at. That’s from Maxwell Systems the makers of QuestMX Estimating and Maxwell Systems Estimation Logistics.

As we continue down that a long road to energy independence it appears that our landfills are going to play a more and more important part in that effort. AmerenUE, an electric service company in the greater St. Louis area is teaming up with Fred Weber, an industry leader in the civil, highway, heavy construction, and waste services sector, to build a 15 MW methane generation operation which will supply the electrical needs of about 10,000 homes in that area. These technological efforts are not new. Vermont’s got some along with Delaware, and other places on the West Coast and in the central part of the country. The process for building these is basically a matter of drilling a number of wells in the landfill, connecting these wells together with pipes, and using large turbine fans to move the methane to the plant that is going to burn it to produce electricity. This particular plant at Maryland Heights, MO, is supposed to deliver 6,000 cubic feet of landfill gas per minute, 24 hours a day, and is pulling all that gas out of 120 wells. This is just another example of opportunities coming about in the green sector.

When it comes to protecting our hearing, whether on the job or off the job, we apparently haven’t been getting accurate ratings on the hearing protection devices (HPD) we use. So the Environmental Protection Agency is a planning on revising the regulations for the labeling of HPDs. In the past there have been single numbers used to estimate the level of protection offered by the HPDs, but now the EPA’s saying that those numbers have been inadequate and studies are showing that while some workers achieve the protection they need many others don’t. So besides going from a single number estimate of protection to a high and low range of estimated protection there are proposed changes with the descriptions of the ratings. For example, the old way was estimated at the 98th percentile of protection obtained by users when the HPD was properly fitted, but now it’s going to go to an 80th and 20th percentile of protection. Also, the way the test protocols are done are going to change. The previous requirement was for 10 subjects for both earplugs and earmuffs in the testing protocol. Those subjects would be fitted by the experimenter, the person running the test. The proposed testing protocol will require 20 subjects for earplugs and 10 subjects for earmuffs, and after being trained on properly fitting the HPDs, the subjects will fit them themselves before the evaluation. There are other changes also and you can read about those at the link above.

None of this is lost of course on the industry that makes the hearing protection. Howard Leight has a new Web site that helps people to understand these new regulations, and also to understand all the different kinds of hearing protection devices, and how to use them properly.

We might also begin to see some of those HPDs we’ve been using turn out to not make the grade anymore.

Just above you can listen to this post in a podcast.

This is one of the more than 30 entries in the Construction Innovation Forum’s 2008 NOVA awards and it stands to help make concrete operations a little bit more environmentally friendly.

Called Envirowash, this system is a closed-loop recycling process for the water that is used in cleaning out concrete truck drums. All the washout water is recycled, treated and available for reuse. The additional benefit to using the system according to Water Crete Systems, the maker, is that nearly 100 percent of ground and rain water contamination is eliminated.

The captured concrete is available for reuse as road base. Currently, the company claims that EPA approved washout pits have a couple of 

deficiencies. Since they are not covered, overflows occur, spilling up to 50 different metals on surfaces where they can runoff and contaminate waterways and ground water. Additionally, only part of the waste concrete can be recovered from these pits so much of it ends up being dumped in landfills. Of course there is a lot of water saved by using this system since the water is reused indefinitely, only needing to be topped up to replace water lost to overspray and evaporation.

The idea about whether or not building materials like concrete and granite contribute to degrading the indoor air quality by leaking radon is surfacing again. A new, not-for-profit (pending) launched by Sara Speer Selber is trying to focus interest on studies that would “eventually generate new standards for building product health and safety.” It’s called BuildClean but the website isn’t filled out yet so there is not much more information other than a press release.  Speer Selber was quoted in part:

“For example, we have little information about radon emissions from granite or concrete; yet those products are enjoying tremendous popularity among designers and consumers, in general.”

The older debate that erupted in 1995 centered around granite. In the very first issue of Solid Surface, a journal for the solid surface industry, an article was published that was entitled, “Granite and Radon.” The article put forth in rather startling terms the idea that granite countertops and other granite items in homes were contributing to the radon build-up in those homes and therefore making them hazardous. Logic could lead you to such a conclusion since granite is an igneous rock, and igneous rocks are the preferred domain of uranium, and daughter isotopes of uranium cause radon.

The Marble Institute of America (MIA) wasted no time issuing a paper entitled, “Granite and Radon-The Truth.” In that paper well-degreed people called the claims ludicrous, politically motivated and bizarre, to mention just a few of the terms. In addition the MIA staff questioned granite quarriers (yes, there really is such a word) and others in the rock business and found that some of them actually were measuring the radon emissions of their products. The MIA wrote:

“The research done for these companies have shown that actual levels of radon gas emissions from granites are so low as to be insignificant and generally represent no threat to the health and well-being of people who live or work in buildings with granite countertops, floor or wall tiles, furniture or any other furnishings made from granite.”

According to the University of Michigan, Health Physics Society in its paper, “Facts Concerning Environmental Radon,” concrete is a radon source depending upon its origin. If you do a search on that document name you will find at least three other sources of that document. Near the bottom you will find a table that lists different building materials and their relative radon concentrations, along with this statement:

“In addition to soil and water sources of indoor radon, home construction materials can be a significant contributor. Table 6 indicates the emission rate measured from various building materials. Clearly, the concrete used in building depending on its origin can be a major contributor, and in all cases, concrete is a more significant radon source than other building materials.”

Radon in general, depending upon what you read, is a considerable health risk in many homes. Considerable enough that the EPA maintains a website specifically focused on it and that agency states that radon is the “second leading cause of lung cancer in America and claims about 20,000 lives annually.” The agency provides a booklet in PDF format that digs deeply into the topic of building radon out of homes. This is great information for those who build things regardless of how you view the radon issue.

But all of that is just about radon and there are many other materials that could have negative effects on the built environment. Speer Selber suggests that it would be better to do the research so we understand the long term effects of materials we build with, and in that way we are not just assuming.

Enforcement of air quality standards at construction sites is increasing especially in the face of more severe weather events and the results of the changing climate having an impact on winds. Another key area that is looked at by localities and the EPA is how water flowing from construction sites impacts the local environment.

In the Concord Monitor it was reported that a New Hampshire a contractor agreed to pay a $60,000 settlement because of allegations that it violated federal standards relating to handling runoff from a site. Not preparing and submitting a plan to handle runoff from a 300-acre site was just one part of the company’s failings. It also didn’t use best management practices to mitigate the amount of runoff that entered a nearby stream, and ultimately the Merrimack River. The EPA maintains a site that specifically addresses best management practices for handling storm water from construction sites and includes a link to a compliance page that “provides plain language information on environmental rules, including storm water, for the construction industry.”

The kinds of negative effects that uncontrolled storm water runoff from construction sites is said to cause include the reduction in the amount of sunlight that reaches aquatic plants, clogging fish gills and the smothering of aquatic habitat and spawning areas. To me though, there are other things as well. What about the leaks of oil and diesel that heavy equipment adds to the soils where it can be carried away by rains? Not to mention the occasional spill that isn’t handled properly because it’s “just a little bit.”