Prefabricated Metal Building Industry News
Everyone here at Norsteel would like to take a moment to wish all of our past and present clients and friends a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year!
While you are here, take a look at our blog roll. We have added a few new links, including some great green news sites and blogs. If you happen to have a construction and / or green news blogs, just send us the link. We may add it to our blogroll.
Looking for ways to add some green to your roof? Here are four ways your roof can have a positive impact on the environment:
Skylights
Skylights are a great way to reduce your electric bills. Installing skylights or solar tubes in your roof, can help you save money. It will decrease your need for electric lighting during the day. It will also bring in natural light which is good for your mental health.
Paint Your Roof White
By painting your roof white, you can deflect light and heat away from your roof. Not only will it help you cool your house, it will also help control climate change. According to the physicist, Hashem Akbari, a 1,000 sq-ft roof, painted white, can offset 10 metric tons of CO2.
Plant a Rooftop Garden
Putting a garden on your rooftop is a great way reduce urban heat islands. Did you know that it can also reduce the temperature of the garden-topped building by up to 15 degrees? Growing plants and trees in the city can also contribute to the overall air quality by eliminating carbon dioxide. That’s great news for all us oxygen-breathers.
Mount Some Solar Panels
Why not turn your roof into a power plant? By mounting a few solar panels on your roof and hooking them into your grid. You can generate some clean energy for your home. It’s expensive in at first, but it can save you money in the long run.
For more tips and information on how to make your roof environmentally friendly, please visit: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/green-roof-tips.html?campaign=daylife-article
A free 48-page illustrated guide on how to acheive Platinum-level LEED certification on a conventional building budget has been published by Portland-based Interface Engineering Inc. Although this wasn’t an easy task for the engineering company, using their current project for Oregon Health and Science University as a case study, Interface has proven it possible. “We’re delivering champagne on a beer budget,” said Andy Frichtl, Interface principal and lead project engineer. “The key to achieving more with less is integrated design.”
The projects design accomplishments include 100% on-site sewage treatment with rainwater and wastewater being harvested for toilets and landscaping, saving 15,000 gallons a day and innovative features such as sunshades that double as solar power generators and the first large-scale on-site micro-turbine plant in Oregon to generate electricity.
More details on this project can be found here and for more information on where you can order the booklet click here.
For more info on this article please visit: www.treehugger.com
VICTORIA - Minister of Housing and Social Development Rich Coleman announced the Cascadia Region Green Building Council will receive $100,000 to deliver education programs in B.C. that will encourage the development of more green buildings and support the greening of the province’s Building Code.
“The Province is helping to prepare builders and designers to implement the new energy and water efficiency requirements in the B.C. Building Code,” said Coleman. “Education and training opportunities will ensure the industry is ready for Building Code changes and ready to meet increasing consumer demand for greener homes and other buildings that have a lower impact on the environment.”
The funding will provide education programs that raise the level of expertise in green building by training the people who design, construct and maintain buildings. The funding is provided by the Ministry of Education ($30,000), the Ministry of Community Development ($30,000), the Ministry of Housing and Social Development ($20,000), and the Climate Action Secretariat ($20,000).
The Canadian Home Builders Association also received $150,000 to promote energy efficiency and sustainability in residential construction. A grant of $20,000 went to Lighthouse Sustainable Building Centre for energy modelling workshops, which assist designers in evaluating how components of a building contribute to the overall energy efficiency of the building. The Province has also provided $25,000 for green building education and training in partnership with the Homeowner Protection Office.
The funding by the province of BC will provide training on green building topics ranging from site design to indoor environmental quality; adapt existing education programs to focus specifically on building green in British Columbia; provide outreach to the public and professional communities on green design; and hire a program co-ordinator in Vancouver. The Cascadia Region Green Building Council is the largest chapter of the Canada Green Building Council and has branches in Vancouver, the Thompson-Okanagan, Vancouver Island and the Kootenay-Rockies region.
These programs support the greening of the B.C. Building Code, which began with the introduction of energy and water efficiency requirements for all new buildings, effective Sept.
For more on this article, please visit: www.supplypost.com
In Boston last week, the U.S. Green Building Council held their annual Greenbuild Expo exposing almost 30,000 people to the latest green-building technologies and materials. People at the show were impressed to see the high number of attendees. At the show, with the environment in mind, there were a number of products designed such as sustainably harvested wood, drywall made from recycled material, and kitchen counters made of recycled paper.
The U.S. Green Building Council passed a draft for an updated LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) green-building certification for commercial buildings. Meanwhile, new LEED certifications for retail stores and neighborhood development are now available for public comment.
There are certainly more and more options for energy-efficient appliances and products made with recycled materials than just a few years ago, however green-building practices are still far from commonplace. Someone constructing a new building or retrofitting an existing one will need to make an extra effort to go “green.”
Last week, Clean-tech investing firm Good Energies weighed in on the green-building debate by publishing a study concluding that the premium people pay for a green building is smaller than commonly perceived.
The study found that people pay on average 2 percent more for green buildings and that there are a range of benefits, including an average of 33 percent energy savings and health benefits to people. To see the study click here for PDF.
CBS Interactive recently opened a new Boston office and is applying for LEED certification. According to the general contractor, one of the hidden costs is simply delays that occur when contractors haven’t already bought from green-building suppliers.
Source: http://news.cnet.com
Over at Green Building Elements, Joel Bittle comes up with the seven sins of greenwashing in the building business. Most are relevant to designers working with LEED, but many are useful to anyone looking at materials for home or office.
Below are the seven ways to avoid greenwashing your building product:
1. Make sure your product satisfies at least one green building requirement. If your product isn’t green, you’re not going to fool anyone. Do one of two things: 1) Research how to convert your product into one that satisfies green building program requirements, or 2) go back and continue to sell to traditional, non-green builders who still build over 90% of buildings out there. But hurry, that percentage drops every year and soon they’ll be obsolete.
2. Do not claim credits that do not apply to your product or to the current building project. I see companies break this rule every week. I can’t tell you how many green brochures I’ve read that claimed the product is sturdy enough to qualify for credits for reusing existing materials. That’s great for whoever is rehabbing the building twenty five years from now, but does nothing for the current project. The example I gave above of the company that wanted to list every conceivable credit, even if they were ludicrous, would apply here. If you can’t support with scientific proof that your product qualifies for a certain requirement, don’t include it in your literature.
3. If you are not unique, don’t try to sell yourself as unique. All stainless steel contains recycled material, so don’t try to sell yourself as the only purveyor of recycled stainless steel. In fact, most steel used in building contains recycled material. A few months ago I had Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, the Sustainablogger, over at our kitchen and bath shop when a new countertop product came in that claimed to be green. As the two of us looked over the specs and the brochures illustrated with trees and ponds, neither of us could determine the product’s green-ness. Of course, they claimed they were sturdy enough to be a reused product. But there was nothing recycled, reclaimed, or renewable about it. It claimed to emit no formaldehyde, which is great, except that no countertop we sell with the exception of laminate emits formaldehyde. And knowing a thing or two about the ore that made up this countertop, I was fairly sure it did more to hurt the environment than help it.
4. Don’t claim that yours is a local product if it’s not harvested/extracted or processed locally. If you are selling in the New York market, having a shipping facility nearby does not make your product local. If your manufacturing facility is nearby but the extraction for the base materials is across the world, simply state that your product may contribute to regional credits within 500 miles of your manufacturing facility, located in such and such town. If both your manufacturing and your extraction are done within 500 miles of your market, shout that one from the rooftops and let every green builder know.
5. No product is a LEED certified product. Or LEED qualified. Or official LEED product. Products are not LEED certified, projects are. So even though you are 100% sure that your product satisfies a LEED requirement, it is still up to the project auditor to determine if it actually does. Use language like “Bob’s Widgets may contribute to LEED credit 2.7…” I’m not sure of the USGBC’s official stance on this, but you might want to replace “may contribute” in that sentence with “have contributed” after your product has actually been used in a LEED project.
6. Your manufacturing practices do not affect LEED credits. While it is perfectly appropriate in your literature to highlight that you use a zero-waste, VOC free, daylit manufacturing facility, only the final product matters when it comes to LEED credits. So don’t cite the credit on reducing waste on the job site and then explain your zero-waste manufacturing process. The energy efficiency of your plant plays no part in the energy efficiency of the new building. This is not to say that your manufacturing practices aren’t extremely important to the environment, and consumers will want to know about them, but the USGBC doesn’t have a way to recognize them in particular green building projects. For more on this, read Green Cabinets: When Wood is Good.
7. Don’t sell yourself short. After all these warnings, don’t be hesitant to proclaim your green-ness. Green builders are interested in every kind of green product out there. If your company offers many different styles, colors, models, or whatever of the same product, but only one of them contains recycled materials, you have every right to include recycled materials on your LEED sheet, just make sure to explain which one qualifies. An early brochure from Silestone failed to mention that a few of their many colors contained recycled material, so for a long time I didn’t even consider Silestone as a green option. One of their colors even boasts 70% recycled material - their literature should, and now does, boast that as well.
For the full article, visit: http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/07/17/how-not-to-greenwash-your-building-product/
Here at Norsteel Buildings,we enjoy promoting workplace and construction safety, take a look at the advanced training for drilling that is offered by this company named Sandvik. They are a global industrial group with advanced products that have developed a revolutionary training concept which combines comprehensive training, modern learning tools and professional trainers with a modular curriculum that can be customized for various needs. The concept, developed in cooperation with education professionals, will drastically improve training efficiency. Beginners, who take the training, will be productive from day one and experienced professionals will learn to use machine features to the fullest. In the first phase, training is available for Sandvik’s surface top hammer drilling.
The in-depth training aims at enabling the operators to understand their role within the quarry process. It goes far beyond just the function and operation of the rig, says Mika Kotro, Training Manager at Sandvik’s surface drills. Sandvik’s training concept addresses the challenges that have long been bothering the drilling industry, among those the lack of qualified professional trainers as well as good training locations. It offers a way of organizing the training as well as the training itself. A modularized curriculum tailored for each individual case based on a needs’ analysis, authorized professional trainers, modern learning tools and a training information bank make learning interesting and guarantee a solid result.
An important factor in this concept is the new drilling simulator which is developed based on the Dpi surface top hammer drills operation system. It offers a possibility to drilling training in an authentic environment. This training helps the students to understand their role in the whole excavation process as well as the key features of total productivity. The students will learn to manage even the most difficult rock conditions and to keep the machine fit and available. The new training method allows easy and risk-free practice of any possible situation.
This new, advanced training will fundamentally change operator training and offer a safe and efficient way of learning drilling in practice as well as it will significantly improve productivity. For more information on Sandvik’s advanced training on drilling, please visit: http://www.sandvik.com/
Source: www.supplypost.com
Last week we posted about “5 Minute Safety Talks to Initiate Worker Safety” and we offered tips for giving workplace safety talks, so after coming across an article that talked about safety training and how to get the message across, I thought I’d post some of the Construction Safety Network’s tips for effective adult safety training:
Source: www.supplypost.com
Workers who operate construction vehicles or equipment can be injured by overturns, collisions or being caught in running equipment. Flaggers and other workers on foot are exposed to the risk of being struck by passenger traffic or construction equipment if they are not visible to motorists or equipment operators. Falls, electrical, struck-by and caught-between are common hazards for workers in highway work zones. Each year more than 40,000 people are injured in crashes in these areas.
An internal traffic control plan (ITCP) can be used to coordinate the flow of construction vehicles, equipment and workers who are operating in close proximity within the activity area, so that the safety of workers can be ensured. A supervisor can evaluate the effectiveness of the temporary traffic control setup by walking or riding the job looking for skid marks, damaged barricades and other evidence of near misses.
Temporary traffic control devices such as: signage, warning devices, paddles and concrete barriers can be used consistently throughout the work zone to help reduce injuries. Motorists should be given plenty of advance warning of upcoming work zones, and the messages on the warning signs should be simple and brief. Providing flaggers with devices that increase their visibility to passing motorists and construction vehicles can also be very effective.
In residential construction, large vehicles on small lots present special hazards for workers and home owners, especially during remodeling or making additions. A ground guide should help move big vehicles that have limited views.
Here are a few safe practices that workers can follow when working near vehicles:
See OSHA’s resources on Highway Work Zones and Signs, Signals, and Barricades for more information.
Source: http://www.toolbase.org
