“Accidents will happen” are words that make me cringe. It’s a form of defeatism and I suspect that people who mutter those words are more accident-prone than most.
The building enclosure is an assembly of materials and layers that acts as an environmental separator between the indoor and outdoor. It controls heat flow, airflow, water vapor flow, rain penetration, groundwater ingress, the transfer of light and solar radiation, noise and vibrations, contaminants, environmental hazards, odors, critters, and fire.
I stood along the rail of an upper tier at the Nashville Convention Center, home of the 2009 AWCI Convention and Intex Expo trade show. I watched two middle-aged men approaching each other on opposing escalators, one going up, the other going down.
The times are tough for everyone in the industry, and yes, even for Walls & Ceilings magazine. Like the rest of you, we have made some cuts and sharpened our pencils. Everyone is nervous today about the economy and we all know someone who has lost a job, home or needs desperately to find work.
Location: It's Sugar Project, Universal City Walk, Universal City, Calif. Architect: ID & Design International, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.Distributor: Fabric Wallcraft of California Inc.Contractor: Mackenzie Keck Construction, Rockaway, N.J. Manufacturer: Barrisol
Many of you reading this own your company, so you don’t have to worry about being laid off, except in the sense of being put out of work by going bankrupt in a miserable economy. The marketplace is everyone’s ultimate boss, at least for those of us who work in the private sector.
I’m frequently asked to look at existing EIFS projects to assess their condition (as in a house sale) or to determine what’s causing some problem (as in the case of water leaks). A thorough analysis often requires cutting into the wall to see what is going on inside. Subsequently, the wall needs to be patched. And the patch needs to be done soon to keep Mother Nature out of the wall.
Meet Victor Picena, proud member and apprentice of the Carpenters Union. He was born in Los Angeles and life was not particularly good for him at first. Victor found himself in a gang and doing everything wrong to be successful and get ahead.
It is generally accepted that for each ton of cement manufactured, one ton of carbon dioxide is discharged into the atmosphere. An average cubic yard of concrete contains 500 to 700 pounds of cement, which equals 500 to 700 pounds of CO². New construction of an average U.S. residence with a full basement will require about 100 cubic yards of concrete, a contribution of about 60,000 pounds of CO².
Several times a year, I get inquiries from companies that want to enter the EIFS business. Sometimes, it’s a big company wanting to set up a new division and it has the resources to do so. In other cases, it’s some small group with a brain-child idea, limited resources and lots of enthusiasm-and they usually think they’ve come up with a better EIFS.
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