A thousand pros said they wanted one of these because of the better visibility. (Courtesy Empire Level Mfg. Corp.)

Now here’s an idea whose time has come – well, actually it came a long time ago but I guess we had better eyesight then and didn’t really notice how difficult it is to read the writing on most rafter squares and speed squares. They are often made of aluminum or plastic with raised scales and numbers and reading them is often an art based on adjusting for available light, reducing reflections and squinting while holding your breath.

Now, Empire Level Mfg. Corp. has introduced its new e2992 Hi-Vis Rafter Square, that it claims offers a variety of features for added visibility, safety, durability and convenience. The blue rafter square is said to be easier to read than traditional silver squares, even when it’s dirty or when jobsite conditions and bright sunlight reduce or interfere with visibility. Its graduations are highly visible and deep-stamped to last for years without fading. The e2992 is made of anodized aluminum so it will not rust or corrode and it features a thicker edge than other products available in the market, which creates a safer saw guide. Convenient, stamped-in conversion tables are also easy to read.

When we showed the e2992 Hi-Vis Rafter Square to more than 1,000 pros, they said it was exactly what they wanted on the job site because it gives them the visibility, durability and productivity features they’ve been asking for to make their jobs easier,” said Ged King, director of marketing for Empire Level.

This looks like a great improvement, but I think for the next iteration we need the gradations and numbers backlit with LEDs. Oh, and why not build in a construction calculator. Wouldn’t that be way cool?

Bucket Ape System helps ease grout job cleanup. (Courtesy Bucket Ape)

Anyone who has ever cleaned up after grouting tile knows what a time-consuming and challenging job that is. Well, it appears the makers of this system have hit upon a better way to handle that job. Watch the video for the complete view (be prepared – the music is a bit over the top). If anyone has tried this leave a comment with your reaction.

Here’s some of what the manufacturer claims in its press release dated August 19, 2010:

Traditionally, a whole house tiling project involves hauling 3600 lbs of water, nearly two tons. Bucket Ape completely eliminates hauling buckets and virtually eliminates the risk of repetitive stress injury to back, knees, and shoulders. Bucket Ape achieves its low cost through leveraging common items that most people already have on hand: a standard five gallon bucket, a garden hose to supply fresh water, and another garden hose to drain dirty water outside. Bucket Ape gives new purpose to items that might otherwise end up in the landfill, and it can even reduce water usage by 60% compared to traditional tile cleaning methods. Prices range from $7.95 for the Bucket Ape itself to the most expensive kit of $29.95 for the “High Capacity Ready-to-Use” system.

You know, you don’t have to look far to find some dissenting opinions on Waste Management’s Bagster. It’s a large polypropylene bag you set up curbside, fill it with remodeling waste or construction debris, or just the contents of your garage when you’re cleaning it out. Then you call Waste Management, it sends out a truck and the thing is carted off. Well, lately on the blog there have been a couple of comments posted that reveal challenges some people have had in using the Bagster. Not surprisingly one is from an independent waste handling professional who actually developed a PDF that covers some of the not too evident downsides. To get the link to his site and ultimately the link for downloading the PDF just scroll down the right side of the page until you reach Comments and select the top one about Bagster.

I want to break here and talk briefly about GoToMeeting because you know along with the emphasis on using local materials, and materials with low embodied energy, there is also a movement toward using processes that have small carbon footprints. One way builders, architects and engineers can reduce the carbon footprints of projects is by addressing the carbon footprints of meetings. With GotoMeeting you can all attend the meeting from wherever you happen to be. And right now, listeners of this show can try GoToMeeting free for 45 days. Just visit GoToMeeting dot com slash podcast. With everyone logged into GoToMeeting whether they’re across the country, or across town, they can see your computer desktop on their computer screen, regardless of the operating system they use. So why not try it out and see if you can trim some carbon from your projects. Try GoToMeeting free for 45 days by simply visiting Go To Meeting dot com slash podcast.

Axion’s plastic composite products are getting used in railroad bridges with some being installed for the Army.

Kwikset challenged locksmiths to pick its new lock and only one fell to the challenge. Learn about the record of a leading competitor as well.

New Orleans has a growing list of LEED certified projects including the largest community of LEED Platinum homes. Find out what else is coming up green in that community.

Workforce Management provides some tips on keeping the information that may be getting lost when the millennial generation workers move on. They tend to move around more so the technical knowledge drain can cost companies up to 50 percent of the person’s salary.Construction Informer Podcast

Stillwater Dwellings model sd152 shown here with Modern Style Package. (PRNewsFoto/Stillwater Dwellings)

Prefabs keep coming on stronger and stronger and by the looks of their designs it’s no wonder. I haven’t had Stillwater in these pages before and as I was perusing some press releases this one stood out. There are of course many others on the market with prices ranging from highly affordable to downright expensive. One in Brentwood HIlls, California, that boasts the latest and greatest in technology costs about $4 million.

Stillwater just added 10 new floor plans. It makes a point to reveal just how open not only the floor plans are, but the pricing too.

Stillwater Dwellings is uniquely dedicated to a transparent and predictable cost structure, helping clients understand building costs upfront. Rather than simply listing the base cost of a home plan, as is the industry standard, Stillwater Dwellings publishes a more comprehensive and typical budget for an entire project, including additional costs such as site work, transportation, and upgrades.

That’s refreshing in an industry where people have not always made it easy to figure out just what you were going to actually spend for one of these homes all set up.

This month marks three years since I shared the very first Construction Informer post on August 6, 2007. As I look back at that rather anemic first post about punch lists I wonder just what was going through my mind. The audience was clearly not defined, the name, while a little catchy and somewhat descriptive, was not really a good name for the Web since it was highly unlikely anybody was going to search for it. Matter of fact, most everything about the Construction Informer was not Web, or should I say, search engine friendly.

There were no keyword goals, no attempt to define pages and categories, absolutely no planning of any kind (other than how much the hosting was going to cost) and a very casual approach to the type of information I was going to Inform about. And honestly, not much of that has changed. Somehow along the way I guess I got a little sideways of the Google god and lost the page rank. It’s never come back, even after multiple attempts at adjusting content, links and practices. So, even though the readership has grown it certainly hasn’t grown like it might have, had there been some kind of a page rank over the past couple of years.

Today, there are 586 posts spanning 20 categories with many of those posts time sensitive. There’s a running commentary here on the housing market meltdown and the resulting construction collapse. There are interviews with builders, manufacturers, software and hardware vendors, architects, engineers and a few other professions. There are more product reviews and overviews than I can count and somewhere in all of that there are many opinion pieces, mostly my own, that rant, cajole or expose some of the thoughtlessness I see in the world.

Then too, there are podcasts, maybe about 30 of them. Nothing here has ever directly generated money and the reality is I have looked upon it as simply a place to showcase my writing. That aspect has generated some significant income from companies who needed some of the kinds of writing that I do.

Special Offer

Recently, I have taken on an ad campaign associated with the podcasts I produce and I was happy to do this because the campaign was for a product I think is really great, especially for the AEC industry. That product is actually more like a service and it’s called GoToMeeting. You can get everybody together right online with GoToMeeting so it can save you a lot of time and angst over trying to get people physically together. And the neat thing is, listeners of this show can try GoToMeeting free for 45 days. All you have to do is visit GoToMeeting dot com slash podcast. With everyone logged into GoToMeeting whether they’re across the country, or across town, they can see your computer desktop on their computer screen, regardless of the operating system they use. So be my guest, try it out and get your team together the easy way. Try GoToMeeting free for 45 days by visiting Go To Meeting dot com slash podcast.

New Web Site

I also want to let you know that my posts on this blog are going to be spread kind of thin for awhile because I have a new venture. It’s called Construction Cloud Computing dot com and it’s about, you guessed it, cloud computing for construction, and also for architecture and engineering.

This idea for the site grew out of conversations with builders, architects and engineers about the challenges they face everyday in not only running their businesses but in having to manage computing hardware and software too. It seems they are really more interested in building than in running IT operations. Cloud computing holds the promise of freeing them to pursue their true passions. Construction Cloud Computing is bringing  together information from across the cloud computing spectrum. It’s set up on the WordPress platform, which has actually become a very robust content management system. So, it has the feel and immediacy of a blog and the flexibility to incorporate a wide range of information.

It’s my goal to bring you important information about cloud computing so you understand it, and can see ways to leverage it for your own, unique business. You can depend on our coverage being objective and well-sourced, with references noted so you can be sure we aren’t just creating content for search engine digestion.

Computing is moving steadily to the Internet. In the not-too-distant future content creation, manipulation and consumption will happen largely online. The devices that connect you to the Internet will no longer need to have massive hard drives and buckets of RAM since the power of computing will reside in huge data centers running all the latest hardware and software.

Cloud Computing

The Internet has often been represented by a cloud in schematic diagrams, thus the term cloud computing. But all it really means is the computational power happens on remote hardware and the interaction between the user and the hardware happens via the Internet.

For construction, architecture and engineering, this portends to be technology nirvana. The smallest contractor will have the computer power of the largest, and the one-person architecture or engineering shop will no longer be hamstrung by the costs of hardware and software.

Kumar of the Glasgow Caledonian University, UK, and J.C.P. Cheng, at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology authored a paper called, “Cloud Computing and its Implications for Construction IT.” The authors describe cloud computing as “anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.” They reported that 90 percent of the construction sector is small to medium-sized businesses. Cloud computing they wrote, holds promise for construction because of the pricing model. The idea is that you pay as you go, and only for the computing power and applications that you need at any given time.

This time I did a boatload of planning so I can hopefully please not only the readers, but the inevitable search engine that might stop by as well. So, hop over and visit, Leave a comment if you are inspired to do so, or even contribute. If you have information about cloud computing you’d like to share, just let me know. I’m always looking for relevant material that will help AEC businesses leverage what could be the greatest technological breakthrough for them since CAD. That’s at www dot construction cloud computing dot com.

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

BIM Risks and Rewards article very clearly outlines the legal aspects of the technology.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is delivering a new process to construction that is forever changing the way the human world is being built.  Being able to see a 3-dimensional representation of a structure before it is built, and while it is in the design stages, has advantages that closely parallel being able to see into the human body with X-Rays and MRIs to diagnose and treat medical problems. A clear vision enables exacting design criteria and eliminates conflicts while saving money and time.

As construction, and its related fields of architecture and engineering adopt the new technology they have to do it within the framework where they have always operated until that framework catches up to the changes that are going on. So, BIM in some regards is hamstrung by the “old ways of doing business.”

I have read many papers on BIM, its advantages and disadvantages and challenges, but one recently written by Michael J. Cremonese and Chad A. Wissinger is elegantly simple yet very insightful in explaining the legal aspects. For a fluid and understandable view of BIM read this.

The iPad is showing up on construction sites and providing access to construction documents and plans as well as serving as a communications tool. (Photo from Apple Web site)

It’s beginning to look like Apple’s iPad might take the technologically-challenged construction sector by storm. Box.net and D7 recently teamed up on an $890 million public transportation extension in the San Francisco Bay Area using Box.net on iPads. According to Box.net:

Palo Alto-based Box.net, which provides a web-based solution that makes it easy to manage, collaborate and share content online, decided to put 20 iPads and Box accounts in the hands of D7 Consulting employees, whose job it was to ensure the waterproofing system being installed on the extension was in accordance with the project’s thousands of documents.

[Listen to the Podcast with Box.Net's Sean Lindow and D7 Consulting's Joe Daniels.]

Then I read the NoliWhite Group, healthcare facility developers, are deploying the iPad on its projects. Everyone on the site will have access to an iPad where they can view the plans in a virtual plan room just using the Web. Documents will also be available to those who need to use and interact with them.

With everyone involved in the construction process having access to an iPad on site, we will ultimately eliminate the need to carry hundreds of sheets of drawings and thousands of pages of specifications,” says Mike Noli, partner with The NoliWhite Group. “The increased productivity level from our craftsmen and supervisors not having to carry around these massive documents alone makes this a worthwhile initiative.

The developer claims it saved $179,000 in just printing costs. But how do the rank and file builders feel about it? NoliWhite provided some perspectives in its press release. One craftsman reportedly said:

I don’t own a computer or have an email address, but the iPad is changing the way I do my work and for the better. It just makes everything so easy and fast, and I really think that it is making me better at what I do every day.

It’s too bad the company didn’t identify the “craftsman,” since that might lend some credibility to the recommendation.

Some challenges might include how visible the screen is in bright light and since it’s not a Microsoft product users will have to get used to Mac’s email. Other MS Office products covert on the fly to the Mac equivalent and can be exported back to Office, or even PDF. Most people I have heard review the keyboard have liked it, but not all. And of course, it is not impervious to damage from nail guns. Still, I bet we’re going to see this piece of hardware proliferate rapidly on construction sites.

The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) describes these systems as “integrating photovoltaics modules into the building envelope, such as the roof or the façade.” They can interface with the utility grid, or stand on their own bringing new meaning and uses to curtain walls, shingles and other components of the building’s exterior skin. Besides the energy generation aspect these systems have lower overall costs than separately mounted PV systems because of their dual purpose.

The materials incorporated into the building’s skin may be traditional PV modules or the new thin-skin, flexible type. While traditional modules deliver 10 to 12 watts per square foot the thin film version delivers between one-third and half that amount. Once the economies of scale kick in for the thin film it is expected to cut the costs of PV.

The Department of Energy’s, National Renewable Energy Laboratory sponsors the annual Solar Decathlon on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. each year to encourage the development of these kinds of approaches to building energy generation. NREL also has ongoing research into BIPV.

NIBS lists a 12 step process for designing a building that uses BIPV and besides following several energy saving design practices that would apply to most any building the organization includes one that will no doubt become increasingly important:

The use of BIPV is relatively new. Ensure that the design, installation, and maintenance professionals involved with the project are properly trained, licensed, certified, and experienced in PV systems work.

The continued drumbeat about cloud computing [earlier CI Post] keeps the topic at the forefront of conversations those in construction are having about how to leverage the cloud and still maintain security and functionality. One aspect of cloud computing is file storage and it’s not as simple as setting up an account with an online backup service. You have files that are constantly being modified and you need a seamless backup that takes into account the needs of users while creating multiple versions of files and making them easily available if something goes wrong.

Join me in a conversation with Andres Rodriquez, the CEO of Nasuni Corporation. Nasuni bills itself as the gateway to cloud storage. Andres offers perspectives on the security of the cloud, the bandwidth issues, why the cloud is evolving as it is and what to expect from the file storage solutions like the one his company provides.

Also, learn about the free offer from GoToMeeting. Save time and money by getting your team together on GoToMeeting. Right now, hold your meetings online for just $49 a month. Try GoToMeeting free.

In this podcast you can learn how cloud storage through an intermediary helps to simplify the task of putting your files online. For many people in construction, architecture and engineering this episode may serve as an introduction to file storage in the cloud, and it may help others visualize how the real world interacts with the virtual world of cloud computing.

A.O. Smith’s Cirrex Solar Thermal Water Heating System makes it easy for contractors to install an energy saving appliance for customers. It comes as a kit so you don’t have to mix and match components from several suppliers. The savings to the home owner are significant, not only in terms of energy bills, but also because of the incentives available. The same incentives offer to make the installer a star for holding down costs.

Get a FREE GoToMeeting Trial

Save time and money by getting your team together on GoToMeeting. Right now hold your meetings online for just $49 a month. Try GoToMeeting free.

Look Beyond Your Construction Fence for Risks

Lockton offers a free white paper that details the risks contractors face beyond their fences. Some of these things can get pretty serious and many managers don’t have a habit of assessing risks beyond the fences.

Health Care Builders Pay Heed

Fifty-eight percent of health care building managers are looking to invest in energy management initiatives, and they are more likely to do so than those in other industries. Johnson Controls’ survey unearthed the numbers. Those who build for health care can find some valuable background here.

Wireless HVAC Automation Opens New Opportunities

Now, residential heating and cooling moves toward zone control with wireless technology. Advector’s systems also offer the installer the chance to get in on the ground floor of the continuing move to wireless technology.