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CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 31, 2011

NC Bridge Project a 50% Off Sale
Filed under: Industry outlook — Tags: — nedpelger

A Balfour Beatty Joint Venture was the low bidder at $65M for a North Carolina bridge project expected to cost $130M.  The Winston-Salem Journal noted that the I-85 Yadkin River Bridge project covers about 4 miles of road and the bridge widening.

What does a bid like this tell us about our industry? Perhaps a few things:

  1. Design engineers and architects are often terrible at budgeting construction costs.
  2. The construction bid market is amazingly competitive these days.
  3. Balfour Beatty really hammers down the estimates.

I remember when Balfour Beatty beat GA &FC Wagman (a part of the company I was working for at the time) on the Lancaster Rt 30 road and bridge project. It was about $100M and Wagman was second by $83,000. Joe Wagman said they lost it by less than 1/10th of a percent or “Coffee and Donuts money”.

When Balfour Beatty was working on the project, they got in numerous disputes with PennDot and headed to litigation. I heard one of the Balfour Beatty guys was talking with a PennDot guy and mentioning that things were headed to the lawyers. The PennDot guy said, “That’s ok, we have attorneys on staff.”

The Balfour Beatty guy replied, “Yeh, so do we, but our guys went to Harvard.”

Later I read in the newspaper that the judges mostly ruled against PennDot. It wasn’t a big surprise.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 28, 2011

The Adventures of a Carpenter Gone Primitive…or “Who is that Masked Crusader?”
Filed under: Carpentry — Tags: — nedpelger

I’ve written previously about Randy, the amazing former carpenter who sold all his tools and decided to go primitive. He lives on our 5 acres, trains the alpacas, cooks the best meals known to this man, cultivates the field, builds whatever pops into his head and generally just does what makes sense around here…at least what makes sense to him.

Recently he got a call from an alpaca breeder. She wants to sell her stud male, but he’d become so aggressive with her that he’d attack her whenever she got near him. She couldn’t sell him acting that wild. Randy’s animal handling skills are uncanny and he agreed to give it a try. After the first day, he came home spit on, bit on and butted. This was one big, mean alpaca. He had a bad case of Berserk Male Syndrome (BMS) which comes from alpacas losing their respect for humans. BMS can become severe and lead to putting the animal down.

So Randy is in Day 2 of the battle, though he created a shield to block the smelly spit and intimidate the alpaca. As you can see below, the shield has BMS with a line through it and the mottoes, “Death Before Dishonor” and “Don’t Spit on Me.”

Of course, the shield had to be made to effectively do battle with the beast.

Do you think Randy has too much time on his hands? I’ll give you an update later on how the alpaca training went…because so far it’s BMS Alpaca 1, Randy 0.

Maybe carpentry as a profession doesn’t sound so bad after all?

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 26, 2011

How to Tell a Joke
Filed under: People Skills — Tags: — nedpelger

Many folks don’t realize how important jokes are in construction. Typically, we have some fun on the jobsite. The guy who knows how to tell a joke well has a certain status. My brother sent me this video clip today of Buddy Hackett telling a joke about a city guy, a country guy and a duck. It’s hilarious. Just watch how Buddy tells the joke.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDvgAbdsvOQ&feature=player_embedded#!

It’s a snowy day here in Central PA, a good day to laugh at some construction humor and just relax a bit.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 25, 2011

Snow Rollers
Filed under: Cool Projects — Tags: — nedpelger

Ever heard of snow rollers? Neither had I till I saw the photo below in a Dark Roasted Blend post about environmental art. It’s beautiful to see the snow roll down the Victorian building detail.

I blogged about beauty yesterday, then went out to a job site and saw some lights installed in what appeared to be a haphazard fashion that just looked wrong. As I put together the process of how they got located there, I realized it made perfect sense to the lighting designer, but just looked terribly out of place. Andy Hess, a construction superintendent with a great artistic eye, suggested we paint a stripe in the wall that would pull the whole design together. I loved the idea. We went from an obvious mistake to a cool design feature.

That’s one of the reasons I love this industry. We have so much room for creativity at all levels.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 24, 2011

Living Large in 500 sf Apartment
Filed under: Cool Projects — Tags: — nedpelger

The site TwistedSifter shows some of the coolest things on the web. The photos below are from a 500 sf apartment in the East Village NYC. The design details are beautiful, creating many functional spaces in a tiny apartment. The design by Jordan Pamass Digital Architecture won the American Institute of Architects 2010 award for small projects.

The isometric layout gives you a sense of the long, narrow space, so you can better appreciate the other detailed photos.

The bedroom nook just feels like a place I’d like to retreat to at the end of the day.

The living room, though small, still provides a nice community vibe.

Not having to abide by Accessibility or ADA code requirements really opens up the design options for efficiency, especially in kitchens and baths.

My favorite single detail was the stairs doubling as drawers. Though the drawer pulls are a poor design, they should have used a router to create a finger pull rather than a steel pull that will get stepped on, bend and cut your foot or shins.

Overall, though, it’s an amazing design. We all get to do some of our own design in our living spaces. I hope you consider a project like this as a challenge to be creative. Since you likely have building skills that few possess, use them in your own space to create some beauty and efficiency.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 22, 2011

Construction Superintendent’s Checklists: Helpful or Useless?
Filed under: Construction Superintendents — Tags: — nedpelger

I’m planning a re-write of ConstructionKnowledge.net Knowledge Database info and I need your help.

Have you ever used them or found the The Construction Superintendent’s Checklists helpful? I’ve been adding to them for 25 years, but wonder if anyone actually uses them. Please post a comment or send me an email if you ever use the Super’s checklists.

Don’t be afraid to hurt my feelings, I’ve boondoggled before. When you try new things and partake in adventures, sometimes lots of work swirls down the drain. That’s ok, because the things that do work compensate. And at least life isn’t boring.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 21, 2011

The Price of Meat has Just Gone Up and Your Old Phone has Just Gone Down
Filed under: Industry outlook — Tags: — nedpelger

Paraphrasing Frank Zappa from “Don’t You Jive Me with That Cosmic Debris“, I just saw a useful post about things that will cost less in 2011 and things that will cost more. These two posts should help you with your planning for the year.

The 12 Things that will Cost Less in 2011 illustrates some fascinating trends. For example, the Kindle book reader cost $259 in 2009, $130 in 2010 and should get to $99 in 2011. A 2 TerraByte (TB) hard drive went from $140 in 2009, to $90 in 2010 and should get to $50 in 2011. For $50, you could never have to worry about computer storage quantities again.

How about things going up? The 20 Things that will Cost More in 2011 also is worth the read. Car Insurance, Chocolate, Airfare, Cars, Food, Water, Gold, Ammunition and Movie Tickets are a few of the culprits. The fast food dollar menu items will soon be only a memory. And of course, postal rates and college tuition will continue their extended run above inflation rates.

What about construction pricing? Can it go down any further? I really doubt it. Lots of firms have been working below costs for the past two years. As these firm slide into bankruptcy, the cost of construction will rise. So the secret is…don’t go bankrupt before it gets better.

It’s like the Steve Martin joke about how to make a million dollars and not pay taxes. First, get a million dollars. Then, when the IRS agent knocks on your door and asks why you didn’t pay taxes, just say, “I forgot.”

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 20, 2011

US Homebuilding: It Really is That Bad
Filed under: Industry outlook — Tags: — nedpelger

In a healthy economy, US residential contractors build 1.5M single family homes a year. The last two years have been the worst since 1959. In 2009, homebuilders broke ground on 554,000 homes and in 2010 they improved slightly to 587,600 homes. Not many industries face volumes dropping to about 1/3 of previous levels.

The unemployment level in construction dropped to about 21% in December, which is surprisingly low compared to the volume drop described above. Of course, the US construction business is more than single family housing. Apartment construction continues to go well as does the public work sectors.

Unfortunately, the construction market for 2011 and 2012 looks bleak. The spending and lending problem hasn’t gotten resolved. Consumers hesitate to spend due to uncertainty and banks to lend for the same reason. The tight state budgets  will also dampen public works for the foreseeable future. Of course, the poor job by banks and the courts to resolve foreclosed properties and get them back into the market further prolongs the pain.

On the bright side, no one really knows what the economy will do next. Remember the words of the old contractor that I have in listed in ConstructionKnowledge.net, “When things are really, really bad, don’t get too excited…’cause they’ll get good again. And when things are really, really good… don’t get too excited….’cause they’ll get bad again” .

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 18, 2011

Are We That Bad at Innovation?
Filed under: Industry outlook — Tags: — nedpelger

I was reading a Nadine Post article in ENR. She’s my favorite construction writer and so often provides useful info in a compelling manner. She described some prefabrication of hospital construction components in Europe, then stated:

But that’s no surprise: When it comes to innovation, Europe leads and the U.S. follows. However, just because something has been done in Europe doesn’t mean it is easy to accomplish here.

The portion of that statement that I put in bold lettering above just annoyed me. I thought, “That’s not true. How can she make such a sweeping statement? I’m going to send her an email and show her why that’s wrong!” Then I tried to think of examples of construction innovation in the US. Drew a blank. How about examples in my own construction business? Drew mostly another blank.

I considered the change from the old energy hog T12 fluorescent light fixtures a few years ago to the efficient T8, now to the super-efficient T5. But that hardly counts as innovation. The green building approach doesn’t really pass muster as innovation either, being a mix of common sense good design or just trendy ideas. Besides, just specifying an updated product really doesn’t constitute construction innovation. Improvements in the way we actually build or deliver the project would be construction innovation.

With few exceptions, we mostly build things the same way we did 30 years ago when I started as a project engineer on sewage treatment plant projects. Or do we? Do you think we’ve progressed with construction innovation in the past few decades? Can I tell Nadine she’s wrong?

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

January 17, 2011

Rule Change in US Congress will Drop Road and Bridge Spending
Filed under: Industry outlook — Tags: — nedpelger

The games have begun. On the first day of the 112th US Congress, the House of Representatives changed a procedural rule that will greatly affect highway projects. This opening move will likely be the first of many to cut federal spending.

Specifically, the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century had installed a firewall that forced legislators to keep highway funding at an indexed level. For the last 13 years, the amount to spend was set automatically and couldn’t be reduced. Then all the congressman just had to fight to get their own pieces of that ever increasing pie.

Now that firewall is gone by a procedural vote in the US House. At this point, everything is on the table.

I have mixed feelings. We certainly need to reduce US Government spending. We need to learn to live within our means. On the other hand, American transportation infrastructure needs maintenance and improvement.

The best solution likely will be found a plan that better measures use and benefits, then charges the users accordingly. We should be moving to some type of plan that charges for vehicle miles traveled. Technology certainly exists for this type of focused taxation, we just need the political smarts to move it forward.

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