With more than 30 years of experience in the industry, this family-owned business has built up an impressive list of structural achievements around the province of Ontario and continues to impress with its large-scale, detailed projects.

Founded in 1988 by Bill and Linda MacLeod, the company is now run by sons Mark and Adam, who carry on the family name on impressive sites like the Milton Velodrome, the Pearson Airport gate re-construction, Great Wolf Lodge, and Maple Leaf Gardens, to name a few.

“We’re smaller but we’re successful, and the reason is that we have the expertise to do it,” says Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer Mark MacLeod. “Sometimes our bigger project will be the only job we might have besides a couple of small ones, and we’re able to give 90 to 100 percent of our company’s focus on that one large job and satisfy the customer. We have the knowledge to do them like some of the big guys, but with us the client gets 100 percent of the focus all the way from ownership down to the first-year apprentice.”

Unique inventory
That attention to quality customer service is one of the keys to Niagara Rigging’s long-running success, coupled with the fact that the company owns all of its own equipment, an unusual practice within the industry.

“We have probably the largest inventory of steel erection equipment in the province,” says MacLeod. “The equipment is another reason we’ve been successful and why we continue to be successful and why we continue to get the jobs.”

MacLeod says he doesn’t have to do a lot of client-convincing to prove they’re right for a job. With one of the largest equipment inventories around, including seven cranes, numerous man lifts, welding machines and various other pieces of steel erection equipment that other companies don’t possess, that advantage makes a big difference, he says.

“That’s where we’re able a lot of the time to get our edge, just having the equipment, having the cranes that other people don’t have,” says MacLeod. “We’re not renting them where other people are, and it’s costing them probably almost twice as much, if you’re renting it instead of owning it yourself.”

This desire to own equipment instead of renting started with their founder – and father – Bill MacLeod, who always believed that buying equipment was the best and most profitable way to go. Founding the company in 1988, Bill started the company because he wanted to be in business for himself and be his own boss instead of running other people’s businesses, says MacLeod.

“My brother and I own the company now, but our father started it and he always believed in buying equipment. He had a good amount of stuff when we took over, and since then we’ve bought all the cranes and other pieces, because basically we were tired of being handcuffed to someone else’s piece of equipment and them sending a bill at the end of every month.”

Owning equipment also eliminates worrying about when you need to get it off site; even if it’s not needed for three days, you’re still being charged regardless of whether it sits unused.

Investing in yourself
“If it’s your own piece of equipment, if you don’t need it for three days, you just let it sit there. Then you fire it back up when you need it,” says MacLeod. “It takes a lot of investment and time and effort to own your own stuff in comparison to renting it, but in the long run, it’s a better situation to not worry about those things.”

Niagara Rigging also has full-time mechanics on staff and provides its own trucking for the equipment, with a collection of trailers, transport trucks, and floats.

“The vast majority of other steel erectors don’t own anything,” says MacLeod. “From a financial standpoint, renting is a 100-percent write off, and with owning it’s an appreciation from an accounting standpoint. But it costs you a quarter as much to own it and you’re still making out better.”

And you’re doing it at your leisure, not at someone else’s, he adds. With owning, you’re not worried about the rental company’s schedule or the crane company dictating the time frame of availability.

“If you want our crane there Monday, we’re there Monday, because we control our own stuff,” he says. “It’s a convenience thing and a service thing for our customers and for ourselves as well.”

Having full-time mechanics on staff also means no waiting in line at a shop for repairs. MacLeod tells his mechanic what the company’s priority is and what’s needed next and what needs to be repaired right now and what can wait, and the work is done as needed.

“Basically the more things you can do in-house in construction and the less you rely on other people, the more successful you will likely be,” he says. “That’s pretty much the best way you can sum anything off about owning your own stuff and being self-sufficient on your own without the help of outsiders.”

The building of a business
The family history and pride in ownership is part of what makes this company’s story unique.

“The first big job that my dad did on his own as Niagara Rigging was a double galvanizing steel mill in Windsor – about 4,000 tons of steel. He just kept going from there and he built it up. With us being from Niagara Falls, over the years we’ve been the go-to company for pretty much all the tourism and hotel owners in Niagara Falls to build their hotels and build their attractions.”

Bill was a union iron worker from the start, and continued on when he started his own business, says MacLeod, adding that his grandfather was also in the business, working for Bill at one time.

“Our dad got opportunities and did a good job. He was successful for people and made money and built the business and we’ve always invested into the business,” says MacLeod. “We’ve never just taken the profit and run away. We’ve always put money back into it by buying equipment, upgrading our shops, and getting newer trucks. It’s definitely a big thing for a business. You have to invest profits back into it.”

Mark MacLeod and brother Adam, the company’s president, now share responsibilities equally, and also wear many hats within the daily duties, including financial, bidding, and execution of the work. Founder Bill has been retired for six years now, but knows the company is in good hands. “Our dad is definitely proud of us.”

The best returns
While Niagara Rigging gets work through word of mouth, it also receives a sizable amount of return work, providing quality, reliable end products.

“We’re still out there pounding the pavement though, and trying to get new customers all the time, along with new general contractors to bid to and work with – and impress so you can bid their work.”

MacLeod estimates return clients at about 90 percent, with 10 percent coming from bidding on projects for construction associations such as the Niagara Construction Association, Toronto Construction Association, and public tender work.

And the projects have been nothing short of impressive over the years. The unique Hamlet Swing and Fixed Bridge, constructed in 2019 on the Trent-Severn Waterway, is an architecturally exposed bridge structure, in place, on temporary shoring, with swing span in “open” position.

All the work done, including cranes and access equipment, was from barges, with assembly of the fixed pony span erected completely on temporary support on a barge and floated down stream into place.

The Niagara Speedway in Niagara Falls is a spectacular elevated track in Clifton Hill, one of the city’s busiest tourist areas. The three-story helical structure, combined with an undulating rolled ramp, is the first of its kind. The track is fully galvanized and the guard rail system is high-performance painted over the galvanizing.

Niagara Rigging also supplied custom rolled and galvanized bumper rails at track level. This challenging endeavour included its intricate geometry, dealing with a sloped helical structure, and the high-performance paint system.

Legacy project
Niagara Rigging is also proud to be taking part in the construction of the main venue for the 2022 Canada Games, taking place in August in St. Catharines, Ontario. The project is marked as a “legacy project” since the building will be turned over to Brock University, St. Catharines and Thorold after the Canada Games.

Canada Games Park will include some amazing features such as a sport and ability centre, arenas, gymnasiums and an outdoor facility with a track and athletic field.

Located next to Brock University’s main campus, Canada Games Park will also house a variety of new state-of-the-art sport facilities, including a sport performance centre, a health and well-being centre, a twin-pad arena, a 200m indoor track, a cycling and storage pavilion, sport offices, and a multipurpose fieldhouse with a parasport gymnasium and a combative sport centre. There will also be six competition beach-volleyball courts and a 400m track-and-field facility for the games. Following the completion of the games, Canada Games Park will be open to the community for use.

Moving forward, the next 10 years means looking at growth and prosperity for the company, and hopefully continuing to do good work and continuing to serve customers.

“Possibly even the third generation might be starting to get involved at about year ten of that, If they choose to. They’ll be old enough by then to have a hand in it or work in the summers between school,” says MacLeod.

“We’ve accomplished lots of cool, interesting jobs over the years. Unique types of projects that are pretty much our bread-and-butter in complex, heavy structural steel and bridges. We hope to keep doing more.”

The post Smaller Company, Bigger, Better Jobs<p class="company">Niagara Rigging and Erecting Company Ltd.</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Everything about Viessmann Manufacturing Company Inc. is efficient, and while clean lines and minimalist design have always been part of its signature style, this innovative leader in heating solutions has just added to its traditional offering with a crisply designed, range of boilers engineered to suit even the most demanding modern lifestyle.

The company’s product design is every bit as slick as its technology. The new boiler design “matches the philosophy of everything we do. Whether it’s a boiler, a presentation, or software, we keep things very simple, sophisticated, and functional,” says Benjamin Jewell, Product Line Manager for North America. Whether these boilers are installed in purpose-built spaces or into smaller living arrangements, they blend into their surroundings effortlessly.

Choosing any Viessmann product is about a lot more than heating or hot water. Every product comes with the company’s service backed by its knowledge base with dedicated instructors at training facilities guiding installation contractors. Its Canadian office is also home to its engineering and controls departments and a CSA Group-certified testing laboratory.

The Vitodens wall-mounted high-efficiency boiler range comes standard ready for high altitude natural or propane gas installation and carefully blends the best new technology with dependability to create the company’s most efficient, reliable, low-maintenance, and intuitive Vitodens unit to date.

“From a volume perspective, the current models of our Vitodens wall-hung residential boilers are our most popular products, and we are excited to be launching our new versions of these models, including a few additional sizes, in July 2021. We are expecting these new models to be equally, if not more popular,” says Sandra Folleville, Marketing Manager.

The company’s new Vitodens 100-W B1HE and B1KE models (85 to 199 MBH) as well as the Vitodens 200 range (85 to 199 MBH) all come complete with new design elements like the Diamond Edge and Vitopearl White finish and several technological features. These boilers are all less expensive to run thanks to a sophisticated electronics platform and its most refined combustion platform yet, Lambda ProPlus. There are also installation benefits, automatic gas adjustment, natural gas to propane switching by pressing a button, automatic vent length adjustment, and software altitude adjustment. These features all allow for smooth installation, making calibration processes, hardware changes, switch adjustments, and specialty equipment obsolete during commissioning.

A new human-machine interface gives homeowners and end-users easy access to information such as the boiler’s gas and electricity consumption in English, French Canadian, and Spanish. Standard, integrated Wi-Fi offers connectivity to the company’s proprietary hydronic heating application, ViCare, available on both IOS and Android, and, because the new boilers also feature standard components of Viessmann’s existing range, servicing is easy.

Looking at the ViCare system, Jewell draws a comparison with systems on the market that have scheduling functionality on their thermostats. “Only about 60 percent of homes use the schedules that are available to them on smart thermostats. Smart thermostats are super common. But the percentage of people that use things like vacant modes, et cetera is really low,” he says. ViCare is different.

Viessmann created a technology that sets up schedules according to the temperature that users would like at certain times of the day. Manual schedules can be easily set up like on a thermostat, only this is a lot more user-centric, employing technologies such as geofencing on smartphones. This technology also switches the boiler from a preset Comfort temperature to an Eco temperature and back to create toasty warmth upon the user’s return. Being able to turn boiler temperatures down when not in use and on again in time for the user’s arrival makes a real difference to cost and energy savings.

The 100-series boilers offer a 3.5-inch display screen and the 200-series has a 7-inch color touch-screen similar to the latest smartphones to allow users to interact with the boilers. “It operates a lot like a cellphone. It allows for a more intuitive user interface. Both the 100 and 200-series’ interfaces also provide more information than we have historically done and quite a bit more than is common in the segment that we’re in,” says Jewell.

More specifically, the 200-series screen provides a range of messages from warnings and fault alerts to status messages letting users know exactly what is happening in the system. This function is a huge improvement on using codes or numbers that had users searching for the user manual or dialling a service technician for more information on what is happening with their boilers.

“Both [user] displays offer three languages. We [also] tend to embrace space, and that’s very much what you get with [our] boilers. The displays are beautiful and intuitive and very functional but disappear when you’re not interacting with them,” Jewell adds, noting that this makes the displays unobtrusive.

Vitodens 200-W B2HE is ideal for larger residences and offers the most applications yet, heating as many as three zones and up to four heating circuits simultaneously. Additional value add-ons include VitoGuide, ViCare, and ViPlan. Apart from providing users with comfort, the ViCare application also allows users to contribute to environmental protection effortlessly by saving energy with timing settings.

“The boilers have been around 95 to 98 percent efficiency for quite some time. As a manufacturer, we’ve invested quite a lot both from a research and development perspective and from a user study perspective. We have a pretty sophisticated [dedicated] user lab in Germany. Trying to understand what makes people happy and comfortable in the home as they interact with our products has allowed us to be a little bit more future-thinking,” says Jewell. “It’s one thing to be [nearly 100 percent] efficient but to make systems intuitive and easy so that contractors and users can use them more efficiently is where I think the Viessmann commitment shines.”

While minimally improving efficiency may not provide any huge immediate financial savings to homeowners, fuel and emissions savings for contractors who know exactly what they need to install the boilers, especially in remote locations, are real. Interchangeable parts take this saving even further, helping to improve overall efficiency tremendously. Time can now be used more effectively.

“It’s thinking outside of the box with regards to some of the efficiencies and green initiatives that are part of the overall system,” says Jerry Leyte, Director of Sales and Marketing.

COVID-19 proved that Viessmann cares about much more than only smart design. Since the beginning of the health crisis, every unit that the company dispatches is accompanied by two cloth ViCare-branded masks, for a total of around 10,000 masks. “We have customers buying multiple boilers. Some are giving them to homeowners who want them or to their own family members,” says Folleville of the masks, noting that the company has seen them around “on teenagers and homeowners who likely got them from a contractor.”

This is a close-knit team ready to serve. Company President Harald Prell recently received the Canadian Institute of Plumbing & Heating’s lifetime service award for forty years of service. However, his tenure at the company is even longer.

Adding to the Vitodens range, the Vitocrossal 200, CI2, (399 to 2000 MBH – one MBH is 1000 BTU per hour.) will be joining its collection later this year. This high-efficiency, light commercial boiler features new proprietary technology that promises to change how commercial boiler engineers specify projects in the future on both retrofit and the new construction market.

“The larger, commercial-model Vitodens boilers can be installed on a racking system in various configurations, as well as larger, floor-model, high-efficiency, condensing boilers that range from 1000 to 6000 MBH,” says Leyte.

Looking ahead, Viessmann has its aim firmly on connecting its entire supply chain to cloud technology to ensure that its customers and end-users enjoy the best user. “There is a future-proof experience behind all of the technologies,” Jewell says. After forty-one years, Viessmann Manufacturing Company, Inc. has the stability and long-term manufacturing expertise it takes to keep North America supplied with top-quality boilers for many years to come.

The post Turning Up the Heat<p class="company">Viessmann Manufacturing Company</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Originally known as Torbram Electric Supply – a respected company serving the Canadian market for decades – the company rebranded to City Electric Supply a few years ago to better reflect its broad range of suppliers and better serve its worldwide customer base.

One of North America’s best-known electrical wholesalers, CES believes in investing in its people, studying the market, and strategically expanding new locations to meet client needs, says company veteran, Vice President of Operations Wayne Davies.

“Several criteria are considered and taken into account,” he shares. “Proximity to our existing branch locations, population, vendor and customer feedback, and obviously the key would be actual location.”

Certainly, COVID-19 caused plenty of slowdowns and shutdowns in manufacturing worldwide, including the production and distribution of electrical products. At City Electric Supply the safety of its employees and customers remains top priority, along with keeping up its excellent customer service and broad selection of products.

During the last six months, CES has proactively implemented several key components to assist branches with inventory procurement. With average product lines per branch location of approximately 4,100 items, the company has made selection and purchasing as efficient as possible, despite the lingering impact of the pandemic.

“I believe customers have appreciated our engaged approach to service and enjoyed the benefits we have offered throughout these challenging times,” says Davies. “A record number of customers are working with CES and our fantastic branch teams, and we believe they need our support more than ever.”

Throughout its years in business, City Electric Supply has formed partnerships with many of the biggest suppliers in the electrical wholesale industry. With over a quarter of a million products, anything the company might not carry can be procured and shipped quickly to commercial, residential and industrial clients.

Ranges of items from well-known manufacturers like Aura, Dyson, General Electric, Lotus, Fluke, Generac, and Acuity, CES pretty well meet all electrical requirements of the most demanding customer.

To make the buying process easier, and more convenient and intuitive, City Electric Supply revamped its website earlier this year. Unveiled in stages during January were a greater functionality and the new Branch Locator feature which enables buyers to search by city, province or postal code. By reading IP addresses, the new website enables customers to search per location for the branches available in their area and their hours of operation; features not available on the old website.

Also in April, the company launched its new bill pay program. After registering online, customers can view and keep track of their accounts, and make payments as needed. “It’s all paperless,” says CES’s Marketing Manager for Canada Sabrina Stalteri. “They have instant access and full disclosure to their account.”

Prior to the added functionality, purchasers wanting invoices or statements needed to have documentation sent to them; today, they have full access to their accounts at any time, day or night. “It is now so much more convenient for our customers than it was before. We’ve also included contact information for inquiries, so now customers can go on our website and the inquiry page and send us emails about product quotes, career opportunities and much more.” Inquiries are handled in a timelier manner and with greater efficiency.

In April, to complement its existing presence on Facebook, the company launched its Instagram presence. The reason, says Stalteri, was the need to bridge the gap demographically, to reach a different audience from Facebook, and to satisfy the demand from CES branches themselves.

“They really felt a need to be in that space,” Stalteri says. “It has a very contemporary design and layout, and we feel that really sets us apart from others in the space. If you look at our Instagram page, it’s very different from our competitors.”

Working alongside Vice President of Operations Davies, Marketing Manager Stalteri is creating the company’s online residential project portfolio, a dynamic, interactive new marketing initiative destined to be a large component of CES’s newly designed website.

Currently in the works, the additional feature will be launched later this year. With COVID-19 forcing more retailers into non-contact sales techniques, CES decided this would be a valuable and welcome addition to the business.

“It is essentially a customized module which showcases both premium and base products, and they are categorized in a room-by-room setting that gives the viewer a visual aid in product selection,” says Stalteri. “The aim was to help customers conceptualize their space.”

With a glowing reputation among its many customers, City Electric Supply is also known for treating staff with respect. The company’s recent certification by the certification program Great Place to Work® is a source of pride for the entire team. “Being a family electric wholesaler business, CES considers its employees an extension of the family,” says Stalteri.

“Recognizing employees as the face of the company, CES takes pride in providing us with a very positive workplace, because they truly believe satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers,” she says.

“I truly believe we generate a support system for our employees,” says Davies. “We’ve continued to look for ways to improve the workplace and the working environment especially over the last few years. This accreditation is the positive reinforcement we had hoped for. We are immensely proud to have achieved this status. We pledge to continue making improvements to create a company culture that our employees can take pride in, and thrive in.”

As part of her job, Marketing Manager Stalteri reads all customer reviews of CES, and frequently finds resounding votes of appreciation filling the company inbox.

“One of the things our customers always say about us is that we treat them like family,” she says. “And I think that’s part of why our customers support us so tremendously when it comes to external initiatives like our fundraising campaign with Make-A-Wish. They really collaborate with us, and I think it’s because we treat them like family as well.”

Realizing that few things are more traumatic to a family than a child suffering from a life-threatening medical condition, City Electric Supply believes in making a positive difference. The company is a proud WISH sponsor with Make-A-Wish® Canada in association with the Children’s Wish Foundation and together, the five-year partnership has realised half a million in funds to support 50+ children with life-threatening illnesses.

Helping others and striving to be the best and do the best for all its customers, City Electric Supply is planning additional branch openings this year and further business-to-business activities within the next year. As the company expands its project teams and departments to meet new demand and growth in this sector, Davies notes that one of the key factors setting CES apart from others in the industry is the autonomy given to management to make and implement key initiatives.

“Our people, their passion, and dedication to our customers is the key component and what makes us stand out,” he says.

The post Many Branches, One Vision<p class="company">City Electric Supply</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Fastform ICF is family owned and operated and has been in the concrete business since the 1980s. In 1994, Archie Duiker, the company’s founder, shifted focus from conventional concrete forming to ICF, one of the first companies in the province to make this leap forward.

The intention was to serve residential, commercial and industrial projects, from small insulated foundations to full scale homes and other larger projects.

As General Manager Nick Stam explains, “Archie was looking for a competitive edge in a competitive market, a low-barrier-to-entry market in terms of concrete forming. So putting forward the ICF as an option was something different that he could offer.”

A competitive edge
By promising architects and engineers design flexibility and giving builders and developers the advantage of safe, reliable and sustainable products with better performance ratings and longer-term homeowner satisfaction, Fastform set itself on an upward trajectory in more ways than one. ICF technology not only offered market growth; it also offered the ability to grow structures vertically.

According to Stam, “Archie was just doing the foundations, but by offering ICF, it gave him the opportunity to build above ground as well,” and it gave Fastform access to larger projects. “ICF were traditionally used for foundations, but we’re seeing more and more houses going to one, two, three storeys, and more and more high-rise buildings, so the sky is the limit.”

When it comes to ICF, Fastform specializes in Nudura products, which feature patented technology that offers ease and speed of installation. Its smart design ensures the highest level of strength and performance, as well as lower maintenance costs. This is particularly true of the Nudura ICF Series, a one-size-fits-all solution.

Fastform offers what it believes are the best ICF products available in the market, and in turn, it offers the best possible service to complement that performance. This has been the reason for its longevity and growth in the market.

From Stam’s perspective, “We think the main reason for our growth is our customer service, just being focused on one product,” which allows Fastform to deliver unmatched expertise in doing so.

Just better building
Nudura features a hinged interlocking system which improves efficiency, reduces the need for labour and makes for all around better building performance. However, the advantages of these ICF products do not stop there.

“It allows you to transport forty percent more material per truckload, which also allows much more storage on site, and they have the largest block in the market. Every time you put down a block, you put down more than twice the square footage of competing blocks,” says Stam of Nudura’s advantages.

Eric Duiker, owner of Fastform and son of the company’s founder Archie, has only praise for the Nudura design: “The Nudura block was reversible, foldable and bigger. Those were their three things.” Then, of course, there are the established advantages of concrete which include a long lifecycle and the ability to outlast any other building material.

“Wood rots and buildings don’t last,” he continues. “Concrete lasts a long time, but in our Canadian climate it is still limited to a hundred years or less because of freezing and thawing. When you take concrete and steel, and you insulate it, it will outlast any normal building method that we’ve known before and there’s a lot of advantage to that – having buildings that you don’t have to worry about. In fifty or eighty years they’re still as good as when you built them.”

Nudura products offer a better R-value and thermal performance than steel and wood buildings and they are designed to interlock seamlessly to create smooth interior and exterior surfaces. The design reduces the labour required on a project and contributes to LEED certification on projects. In fact, Nudura and Fastform have been a part of several high-performance, award-winning projects.

The Nudura One series is used on projects requiring a higher fire rating or greater technical performance, while the XR35 offering provides a much higher R-value versus other types of insulated concrete forms.

In its company literature, Fastform says, “Nudura XR35 products provide the optimal solution for homeowners, builders, developers, and architects who are looking to create better net-zero buildings that offer higher thermal performance and overall energy efficiency.”

The right time
One of the greatest advantages for Fastform is the direction the market is taking. Lumber is expensive and adds significant costs to projects. ICF offers a more affordable solution that is designed with ease of installation and longevity in mind.

“Lumber prices have gone crazy,” Stam notes, “which is a huge opportunity for us in getting people to consider our product for the first time. I think, historically, we may have been a little more expensive than building in a traditional manner, but you get the benefits of ongoing reduced heating and cooling costs, air tightness. And now we’re even competing on upfront costs.”

Fastform believes so strongly in the Nudura product that Archie sat on a research and development committee for several years to provide specific feedback in the area of product development. A little over a decade later and that belief is stronger than ever.

Expanding on demand
Given the advantages of the Nudura products and Fastform’s service and expertise, demand for ICF continues to grow and so too does the company. Its Orangeville headquarters are being expanded and upgraded, utilizing ICF, of course, to demonstrate its outstanding performance.

In addition to its head office in Orangeville, and an established presence in Mississauga, Fastform has a new operation in Ayr, Ontario, which opened for pickups and deliveries in March of this year. The growth is strategic to ensure it can satisfy demand in its growing market.

Fastform is poised to take advantage of the current building boom in Southwestern Ontario where builders are starting to consider ICF for the very first time. The tri-cities region of Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, as well as the cottage market in Grand Bend and Kincardine, is driving new growth.

“We are looking to continue to grow in Southwestern Ontario, and the Golden Horseshoe; all the way from Lake Huron to Lake Erie, and all the way past London,” says Stam. This is a fairly ambitious growth target, but demand is growing and the company has the capacity to bring Nudura products to everyone who perceives the product’s outstanding contribution to modern construction.

Training in-house
Further to providing Nudura products, Fastform ensures their proper use through in-house training. It offers a one-day ICF training course that teaches the basic Nudura ICF installation skills to ensure that jobs are completed efficiently and that the true value of the product is being realized.

“We spend a lot of time educating new customers about our product and how to use it. We help with estimating of projects, we run the in-house training programs to teach how to install the product, so we offer a level of technical support that you can’t get from someone who isn’t focused on one item,” said Stam.

The training course is conducted by a certified Nudura installation specialist and an experienced ICF installer. Participants are required to complete and pass an open-book test with a grade of seventy percent or greater and in doing so they receive a certificate of completion. The participant is then subject to review on two projects by a local Nudura distributor to receive the trained installer card.

“Our new headquarters will have a large training centre,” explained Stam. “The training course is a big add-on that we offer, so I think having a dedicated space for that rather than cleaning out a warehouse or something is really going to add to the level of professionalism.”

Going up
Despite its strong focus on professionalism and the exceptional standard of service it offers, the team at Fastform is relatively small, especially considering its significant market impact. Like the Nudura products they believe in, the company has been built to last. This is evident in the entrepreneurial environment that has been created inside the company, in which self-starters and strong communicators thrive.

“If you have an idea, you should propose it, but then we’re probably going to ask you to go and do it at the same time. So really, anything that you want changed, let’s try it and let’s see what happens,” explains Duiker. He notes that if pilot projects are successful, they can quickly be rolled out across the various locations experiencing energetic growth.

Thanks to the winning strategy that has been adopted at Fastform, the company is on a strong upward trajectory – a performance, it’s fair to say, that is entirely related to the performance of its outstanding products.

The post At Last, Buildings Built to Last<p class="company">Fastform ICF</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

“All roads lead to Rome,” it has been said, or maybe it should be, “to the Roman way of doing things.” And that’s true: superhighways criss-crossing continents today use the same foundation as the Romans did on the Appian Way in 264 BCE.

Although so much has changed, those men from Rome would still recognize aggregate – crushed rock, sand, and gravel – today still the critical component of any road, just as it was two thousand years ago.

Which brings us to Mainland Construction Materials. Among the company’s holdings is Cox Station Quarry, capable of producing over three million metric tonnes of aggregate per annum, making it the second-largest granite (hard rock) quarry in Canada.

We spoke with Kevin Spenst, President of Mainland Construction Materials; Colin Herbert, Equipment Repairs and Maintenance Manager; and Sandy Heer, Human Resources Manager, about the essential services the company provides, the challenges faced by aggregate suppliers, and the company’s remarkable growth trajectory.

The original company, Mainland Sand & Gravel, was formed in 1970 by Laurie Carlson and, until 2014, remained a family-owned company operated by Laurie, and later, his sons, with Ted as president and Brent in charge of sales and barging.

In the early years it dredged the Port of Vancouver annually to keep the Fraser River open for shipping, and marketed the dredged river sand from its Timberland Road Depot in Surrey, BC, which today remains an integral part of the business.

Then in 1986, the company began extracting aggregate from a 400-acre site, the Cox Station Quarry on the north side of Sumas Mountain. This was shipped by barge down the Fraser River to distribution yards in Surrey and Richmond.

Herbert recalls that when he came to work at Mainland 25 years ago, there were nine employees, one processing facility and one depot. Today there are 260 employees, five depots in addition to Timberland Road; two pits and three quarries.

The McLean Quarry and the Jamieson Quarry, located in Abbotsford on the south side of Sumas Mountain, produce about a million metric tonnes of aggregates per annum, while the Cox Station Quarry has doubled in size, and can ship over three million tonnes per annum, making it the second largest in Canada.

In 2014, Mainland was purchased by Summit Materials, which is based in Denver, Colorado and has about 400 locations in 23 states. It’s now a publicly traded company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Carlson family, according to Herbert, were very good employers, but “realized they had taken the company to a certain level and it was time to turn it over to somebody else to continue to grow it. They told us they had interviewed several companies and decided on Summit as they determined it would be the best fit and in line with their values.”

While the Carlson family was assessing Summit Materials’ likelihood to “be the best fit,” that company’s directors were no doubt examining Mainland’s proven track record.

Mainland had invested in a large amount of heavy equipment, including the barges on the Fraser River; was recognized as a reliable supplier of high-quality granite aggregate to highway construction companies, as well as river sand, the preferred topping for sports fields and golf courses; and had been the sole supplier for two major projects.

The South Fraser Perimeter Road, a major project completed by Mainland, required approximately 2.7 million tonnes of aggregate, with a challenging schedule requiring delivery of upwards of 75,000 tonnes per week. But the numbers tell only half the story.

Herbert recalls that Mainland was awarded the contract about the time that the BC government began pouring infrastructure money into the economy at the end of the 2008-09 recession. It was already committed to providing two million tonnes a year to its regular customers, and although the rock was available, there were issues surrounding the acquisition of more heavy equipment.

“The industry went from zero to sixty overnight and no one had anything for sale,” Herbert says. “We were trying to buy Caterpillar trucks, but we were told they might come with no tires or even a box, because there had been such a disruption in the supply chain, and no one had anything in stock.”

The biggest challenge of all was setting up a second crushing plant. “We purchased a portable crushing plant that had to be trucked all the way across the country from Nova Scotia,” he says, “set on a high beam chassis with wheels, big screening decks, crushers and conveyors. Finally we were able to put together a second plant, a combo of new and used equipment, assembled with in-house expertise.”

So eventually there were two operations going on at the 3.5 km-long hourglass-shaped Cox Station Quarry. One dedicated to Mainland’s regular customers at the one end, and the other at the newly acquired east end. Both were working 24 hours a day, with barges starting to load at 5 a.m. and equipment maintenance carried out during the graveyard shift.

Close to the end of that project, the company acquired another huge project. Approximately three million tonnes of aggregate was required to pave the Tsawwassen Mills Shopping Centre, with a really difficult schedule calling for up to 24,000 tonnes per 24-hour day.

“Then, when that was going on, the Vancouver Airport project took off,” Herbert adds, explaining that Mainland was able to bring in a barge loader with a hopper and an offload conveyor, close to the airport, so trucks could be filled, a process that can take 10 to 12 hours.

“Marine shipping is important,” he says, noting that 95 percent of the aggregate from the quarries travels by barge or tug down the Fraser River. “Not only does it free up traffic congestion and reduce fuel costs, it reduces wear and tear on the roads, because heavy gravel trucks tend to rut them out.”

“From my perspective, it has been a very good transition from a family-run business to a corporate structure,” Herbert says. “Summit Materials has given everyone within this organization the tools to succeed. They have made the capital available and reinvested in the company.”

Summit’s plan was to grow the company, which they rebranded as Mainland Construction Materials. In 2017 the company brought in professional engineer Kevin Spenst to be the new president. Having worked in all four western provinces, Spenst brought extensive industry experience to his role.

That same year, Winvan Paving, a civil and paving contractor that has served the lower mainland for over 50 years was added to the Mainland Group. Located in New Westminster, it maintains an asphalt plant, aggregate depot, barge ramp, testing lag, and maintenance and repair shop, and employs 150 people.

Three years later in 2020, Mainland purchased another strong family-owned business, Valley Gravel Sales Ltd., which added one quarry and two sand and gravel pits. This brought the company one step closer to its goal of becoming leading supplier of stone, sand, and gravel in the lower mainland.

“We are still looking to acquire,” Spenst told us. “We would like to have a ready-mix concrete business, and we would like to add businesses in a different market. Winvan was focusing on the Fraser River Valley and Vancouver areas, but there’s no reason, if the opportunity came up, that we couldn’t move further into the valley, to the Kamloops or Kelowna areas, or maybe across to Vancouver Island and Victoria.”

Not only is Spenst thinking about product, he has been thinking a lot about customer service. “A lot of companies produce aggregates and pave roads,” he says, “but from a service perspective, we want to differentiate ourselves in two ways. First, we really want our customers to see us as different from everyone else. We do that by being more accessible, more accommodating and giving better value to our customers by finding solutions, and going beyond ‘just doing the job.’ Second,” he says, “we want to differentiate ourselves by being the best company to work for and I want people to feel rewarded about their work and know their manager cares about them.”

Recently Spenst has been working with Sandy Heer, Mainland’s first Human Resources Manager, who joined in 2018 to revamp the company’s core values so that they better reflect the company. Many businesses, Heer says, use words like ‘integrity,’ or ‘sustainability’, but those words can be nebulous, meaning different things to different people. Heer is adamant that she wants the company’s values to resonate with everyone.

“So instead of using the word ‘integrity’, we’re saying, ‘Do the right thing’ and that makes sense to everyone, whether they’re driving a loader or sitting in an office.” In the same manner, a reference to health, safety and wellness has been replaced with ‘Put people first in everything we do.’ People understand what this means, she says, just as they understand the other values: ‘Be Committed’, ‘Work Together’ and ‘Strive for Quality’.

‘Do the right thing’, Heer says, is her favourite value because it extends to everything the company does, including making sure the equipment has air-conditioned cabs for the operators and exercising caution when crushing rocks so as to not disturb the water table.

Doing the right thing also means working with suppliers to find more fuel-efficient engines, using solar power on company buildings, and generating power to put back into the grid through a conveyor that runs downhill.

Heer concludes with the thought that doing the right thing is also about corporate responsibility to the communities where Mainland is located, “whether it’s tree planting, donations of aggregate, volunteering at food banks, or adopting trails in the mountains to maintain. Our plan for 2022 involves a heavy commitment to the Fraser River Valley, because we use the river a lot, and we want to make it greener and give back some of what we have taken away.”

The post Laying the Foundation<p class="company">Mainland Construction Materials</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

We first spoke with the current president of National Roofing, Jackson Johns, in September of 2019. As we catch up with him in a very different world, he explains how the company is continuing to implement new strategies to both increase productivity and retain its workforce in uncertain times.

National Roofing has accumulated more than 40 years of history since the day when Jackson’s father, Tom Johns, began a simple home re-shingling operation. Johns led the fledgling company with a big name through a rapid expansion, transitioning from residential to commercial roofing in the nineties.

But with such rapid growth, National risked losing the hands-on professionalism and approach to quality which had helped build its reputation. So rather than spinning off a subsidiary or two, National made the conscious decision to trim its sails.

“Diversity is safety”
Today, the company is coming full circle with a recent decision to re-open its residential roofing division. Jackson Johns says that the decision is simply practical: “Diversity is safety.”

While construction overall has remained an “essential” industry, the COVID-related slowdown led National’s staff to predict more service and maintenance calls, and fewer large re-roofing projects. Johns remarks how this is the “standard playbook” under such economic circumstances, but, “That never happened… everybody worked from home and their offices just sat empty. Nobody cared if they leaked.”

To further compound this move’s practicality, Johns maintains a cautious outlook as the US begins to emerge post-COVID. With the specter of possible future pandemics and resulting economic upheavals moving forward, National sees the return to its residential roots as insurance.

“With all the volatility that we’ve witnessed over the past year, the safe move seems to be that the more lines of business activity you have available to you when changes happen, especially when they’re swift and unpredictable, [the better],” Johns explains. “That’s really the safest bet that you can make.”

Re-opening the home roofing department, therefore, was a natural adaptation. As Johns explains, National’s long service record aided in this reorientation and new expansion.

“It became apparent that the place to get into, because we could get into it with very little investment, was the residential marketplace,” he says. Indeed, it was clear to National’s staff that the residential market was open and waiting: “Over the years, we’ve had thousands of phone calls that we’ve had to turn away or turn elsewhere, because we weren’t a residential company, and now we’re finally shifting back into it.”

Building capacity
National’s roofers offer roof installation, maintenance and repair, as well as estimates and evaluations to suit any budget. The company is among a select few in the Southwest authorized to work with all major roofing material manufacturers. In one of its newer additions, the company uses advanced drone-mounted infrared cameras to find moisture leaks.

Additionally, National has added cladding to its list of services, providing roof and wall systems of metal, clay, slate and composite materials. Skylights and canopies offer natural lighting while maintaining structural integrity, and advanced drone-based LiDAR imaging helps National’s team design custom systems down to the finest detail.

These capabilities have boosted National’s workload exponentially. “We went from having one million-dollar job a year, to having several run concurrently in a given quarter,” Johns says.

The company is able to field suitably large facilities for large industries such as biotech research. National is currently re-roofing the production facility of a major pharmaceutical provider, while dealing with the added wrinkle of keeping the building operational during the process. Despite the challenge, Johns feels proud. “We’re getting to work on a building that’s working to solve this pandemic, and there’s a feeling of being part of the solution.”

Another recent success is Albuquerque’s own Children’s Grief Center, a local trauma counseling charity. The Center was moving into a larger facility, and asked National for a patch job.

Johns and his team disagreed: “We looked at it and said ‘if we patch this thing, we’re just going to be out here again patching it in a year. Let’s just re-roof it.’ We were able to do an entire re-roof entirely pro bono.”

He describes the pride the team feels in the work and the challenge: “That’s been a big thing to give our employees meaning in the work that we do.”

Putting price in its place
Thanks to sheer size, National is in the rare position of being able to afford such projects. This reflects its philosophy: an unwavering commitment to quality, regardless of cost. “When we start to go over budget on a job, there’s a tendency to find a way to do it cheaper,” Johns remarks. “We’ve always tried to do the opposite.”

This philosophy is also practical, as a solid job done right limits warranty calls. In the end, Johns says, National treats mistakes as teachable moments. “I think the real secret to quality isn’t not making mistakes; it’s owning up to them and fixing them when you do.”

As well as National’s wide array of services and long and distinguished service record, its company culture remains a strong draw for both clients and employees – and it is evolving. “Times have changed, the industry has changed,” Johns says.

He notes that, compared to the 1970s, both acceptable workplace behavior and management practices have improved: “The way that a company in the construction industry interacts with its labor force has changed dramatically.”

Nevertheless, Johns remarks wryly that still, “There’s a certain element of this industry that mistakes kindness for weakness,” but he says the company is fostering a more supportive intra-office environment to remedy this. In fact, in response to peers complaining of high employee turnover, Johns is known to ask, rhetorically, “Have you tried being nice?”

Acing it
To better facilitate a ‘nicer’ working environment, Johns relates how he and his staff updated National’s core value system. The traditional model acronym of ACE, for Achievement, Consistency and Excellence, had one problem: “If I asked people about them, nobody could tell me what they were,” Johns says with a dry chuckle.

But adding two letters to create a new system solved the problem. “When we added in the concepts of Gratitude and Resilience being core concepts of our company, then people started to get into it. That was really what got people’s attention.” The newly re-branded GRACE system has noticeably improved National’s resilience, and has brought a great sense of camaraderie to the company.

This camaraderie has been further enhanced by the decisive steps the company took to combat COVID-19. Johns relates how National had previously experimented with telework and a less restrictive approach to work, but with the pandemic, “it accelerated ten years of change in about a month.”

More than a year on, the results are clear: “I think that we will eventually see movement away from compensating people on an hourly basis,” he says, “as we aren’t really interested in how long something takes, we’re interested in the product that they create.”

COVID-driven changes are likely to stay. Johns highlights how National is enjoying both higher productivity and a safer work environment. He predicts that new developments such as ‘hot-desking,’ or multiple employees sharing a desk on different shifts, are here to stay.

Hybrid workforce
National’s new, larger headquarters facility, into which it was moving at the time of our previous article, will further aid distancing. Some employees have already asked to be allowed to work from home permanently, and Johns says this new hybrid workforce may better accommodate a diverse employee base. “If we thought that the pace of change was shocking at the start of the pandemic, I think people are going to be stunned at how little changes back once we finally put this mess behind us.”

But while National’s core workforce remains steadfast, roofing remains a high-turnover occupation. While Johns admits this means there will always be work for National due to a shortage of roofers, the company is not spared from this ongoing problem.

National now has a new and evolving training program, including both classroom and on-the-job training. As part of this, Johns says National’s new philosophy is to constantly search for teachable moments to bolster new recruits. “If you run into a problem that you’ve solved before, grab someone who is new and younger, and walk them through it. Don’t just solve it yourself – walk somebody else through it so that they can replicate it,” he says. “All the problems we have are learning opportunities.”

In addition to these training programs, National is now working to encourage positive reinforcement to help mitigate the demands of roofing. The company hired tutors to help employees’ children with homework for those employees working from home. “Everyone is only as happy as their least happy child,” Johns remarks, “and so we had to provide this additional help if we were going to have any reasonable expectation that people would stay productive during this crisis.”

A vaccine raffle enters those employees who have been vaccinated into the draw for a prize, which Johns hopes will reduce opposition to vaccination. He believes that, while vaccination will eventually be mandatory, these measures can help positively retain employees into the future.

National continues to look to the future. Johns and his staff are examining new opportunities such as augmented reality to increase efficiency. This ongoing drive for innovation, along with National’s long history of dedicated service, should bring the company continued success for decades to come.

The post Where a New Culture and New Training Meet Traditional Strength<p class="company">National Roofing</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Taking on construction projects ranging in value from about $100,000 dollars to $40 million, privately-held Division 15 Mechanical works with its customers every step of the way, from design to completion.

“We do small jobs and big jobs,” says Dinos Hadjiloizou. “We are a relationship-based company and we are prepared to support our partners with whatever they do.”

Expansion meets demand
Now approaching 14 years with the company, Hadjiloizou worked his way up from project manager/senior project manager to project director, operations manager, vice president and general manager and on to his present role as president and general manager, leading highly skilled multi-departmental teams. He says the company today has grown to a total staff of about 100.

Responsible for over 230 projects to date, Division 15 provides commercial, institutional, and district energy clients with design-build, design-assist, and a full range of construction services, including prefabrication and building information modelling.

Better known simply as BIM, it is a state-of-the-art three-dimensional model-based process which gives architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) specialists the ability to better handle projects, from planning and design to construction and infrastructure, including maintenance of systems such as water, gas, communications and electricity.

At the forefront of the latest in mechanical solutions, including BIM, with a focus on the environment and sustainability, Division 15 keeps growing and upgrading to meet the needs of the evolving construction sector.

At the beginning of March 2021, the company moved into its new facility in Richmond, BC. There were several reasons for taking this step. One was the need to accommodate growth in prefabrication, and to provide sufficient space for the company to prefabricate parts of its work and assemblies before shipping them off, thus making the on-site installation more efficient. Another reason was safety.

Most companies preach safety, but Division 15 Mechanical is truly passionate about keeping all employees and clients as safe and free from incidents as possible. Frequently revising its Occupational Health and Safety Manual – which stands at 191 pages and is approved by the Safety Management Committee – the company addresses all safety policies, programs and procedures.

Through its COR Certified safety program, which includes health and safety policy roles and responsibilities, safe work practices and personal protective equipment (PPE), training, inspections, investigations, reporting protocol and more, Division 15 acknowledges the need to provide and maintain healthy work environments.

Like other types of construction, the installation of mechanical systems like heating and ventilation usually sees many tradespeople, such as electricians and drywallers, working closely in crowded areas. With its new facility, which includes about 12,000 square feet of modern office space and another 20,000 square feet of fabrication shop, Division 15 can pursue more of a manufacturing style of construction in a larger, safer environment.

“Depending on the projects and systems we work on, we can prefabricate certain assemblies, test them, and deliver them on site,” says Hadjiloizou.

Landmark projects
Active in commercial, district energy, and institutional jobs, clients of Division 15 include the Molson Coors Brewery, the City of Vancouver, and the West Vancouver Police Services and Municipal Hall, to name a few.

One of the company’s ongoing works is a new Health Sciences Building. Set to be a nursing school, the project – in collaboration with the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), Bird Construction, and architecture/engineering firm Stantec – is more than midway through completion, and expected to be finished by February 2022.

Using the power of BIM, Division 15 was able to design and prefabricate two rooftop mechanical rooms off-site, “with the finished products to be landed in place and final connections made,” according to the company.

“The mechanical systems include connection to an existing geothermal field, ice thermal storage to accommodate peak cooling demand, water-to-water heat-recovery chillers to provide heating and cooling simultaneously with a backup chiller and electric boiler for peak demands, and air-handling units equipped with heat-recovery wheels to recover energy before exhaust is discharged to the outside air.”

Although Division 15 has been implementing BIM for about a decade, the new Health Sciences Building demonstrates anew how this mechanical solutions company has pushed the envelope.

“Instead of assemblies, we are building complete mechanical rooms, with the mechanical systems in the room, and delivering them to the job site,” says Hadjiloizou. “They are basically plug-and-play mechanical rooms… since they’re for the training of the nurses.”

Another project underway for the company is Vancouver Centre II (VCII). A LEED® Platinum, WELL Gold and WiredScore Silver commercial work, VCII – at West Georgia and Seymour Streets – is being developed by GWL Realty Advisors, and is being described as “an iconic development in the new core of the city’s central business district,” and one which will “set the bar for new office buildings in Vancouver and across Canada,” according to the official Vancouver Centre website.

With a design complementing nearby iconic structures such as the Scotia Tower building, VCII will be a 34-storey AAA sustainable office tower offering tenants who care about sustainability truly inviting, comfortable spaces.

“In both the new Health Sciences Building and VCII, we are the prime mechanical contractor,” says Hadjiloizou. “We are providing the mechanical systems for plumbing, heating, ventilation, sprinkler system, the ductwork – the complete mechanical system. Some of this work we do through our trades, like sprinklers and sheet metal, but the rest of the systems we self-execute.”

Designed for maximum efficiency, VCII will include seven levels of underground parking, along with ground-floor and four levels of above-grade parking; decks connecting to a fitness centre and yoga studio on the fourth floor; and even a fully equipped dog run on the seventh floor. With generous parking, common areas, lobby, banking and retail areas, and convenient access to rapid transit, the eagerly anticipated project is set for completion at the end of 2021.

Award-winning excellence
Along with praise from its many clients, Division 15 Mechanical has earned multiple awards of excellence, including from the Vancouver Regional Construction Association (VRCA). District 15 was also recognized in 2019 with a Gold Award for the Simon Fraser University (SFU) SE3P Building, and a Silver Award for the Northeast False Creek (NEFC) District Energy System Phase One.

Working within British Columbia’s borders for now, the company plans to purposefully expand outside of the province’s borders, and to perform more prefabrication work in the future.

“We don’t want to become everything and anything,” comments Hadjiloizou. “Division 15 wants to focus on its operations and the actual fabrication, and develop that in a way that allows us to better serve our clients, our partners, without having to become this huge company that is inflexible. The idea is to advance our operations and our fabrication so we can deal with any challenges and future opportunities.”

The post Bringing Buildings to Life<p class="company">Division 15 Mechanical</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

The founders had connections to Ontario’s Lake Chandos so, upon deciding to enter the construction industry together, the company was named in honour of that connection.

In the ensuing 40-plus years of its history, the company has grown exponentially into a national provider with over 500 employees, seven offices across Canada, and with sales last year of around $600 million, making it one of the largest Canadian mid-sized contractors.

A major development in the company’s history came in the early 2010s when it began research into a process called integrated project delivery (IPD) and eventually shifted its work toward using the process full-time.

IPD involves the company collaborating actively and openly on a project with owners, engineers, architects, and trades alike. IPD enables a specific contract type (CCDC30) that puts key designers, tradespeople, contractors, and owners into an equal contract and replaces the more traditional construction hierarchy with a flatter management structure.

This contract means that profits are at risk for everyone, but also opens all levels to joint decision-making as the team comes up with mutually agreed-upon goals and values. Vice President of Collaborative Construction Jen Hancock feels that with this approach, team members have “skin in the game,” the result being a great project for the owner.

The IPD approach gives Chandos the ability to be more innovative – more willing to try new things and take risks.

IPD also has the added effect of enabling a greater degree of sustainability. If a client specifies a sustainable project – such as a Net Zero energy building – having an IPD team aligned around that design usually leads to a higher success rate within the owner’s budget. There is also the likelihood of a team making better construction choices, connecting the entire supply chain to the design for a more collaborative approach.

Hancock sees this approach through the lens of climate justice as further contributing to sustainability, in how it can help marginalized communities and those affected by climate change. Hancock notes that Chandos wants to use the approach in community-based projects such as working with Indigenous communities in Canada to enable community members to play a more active role in the design and construction process.

Company president Tim Coldwell summarizes that the IPD approach helps manage projects with large degrees of complexity while also helping to save clients premium costs; in short, “IPD helps us build better buildings.”

The IPD approach is something of a microcosm of one of the company’s major ideals, which is referred to as the culture of collaboration, the concept that better ideas are formed through a diversity of thought and opinion among its workers. Hancock is firm that the company desires ideas from everywhere within it and seeks to leverage the experience and knowledge of everyone willing to collaborate. Hancock feels this leads to work being much more enjoyable for employees and, in turn, to a better product overall.

Chandos focuses on collaborative contract methods as opposed to hard bidding practices, leading to less conflict and a space for open and free conversation. This culture also extends to other unique aspects as all employees are given the opportunity to own a single class of voting shares, meaning that control of the company is widely distributed. Coldwell emphasizes that the company is one where everyone can become an owner, allowing for even greater collaboration and the integration of different perspectives into the process.

Around the same time as its switch to IPD and after doing several LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) projects, the company decided to make all its projects LEED-compatible with regards to waste diversion. “We do it because it’s the right thing to do,” Hancock explains. “It is a space we are leading in. No other construction company is doing that in all of its projects.”

With initiatives like this, Chandos has established itself as a company eager to take a leadership role and say yes to all types of work while keeping true to its work in waste diversion and its use of IPD, which has led to significant projects.

Chandos Construction is also a Certified B Corporation which means that the company meets a rigorous set of standards according to various criteria such as providing living wages, encouraging employment across POC and Indigenous communities, gender diversity in the workplace, environmental sustainability, community work and more. Hancock says that the company aims to continually look at the questions asked of a B Corporation that will optimize the business, and adds that having this third-party certification is important and validating of its practices.

Chandos has been a part of many notable construction projects across the past 40 years that have refined and improved its approach to building. In fact, Hancock cites its work on the Mosaic Centre office building in Edmonton in 2013 as a significant catalyst for the way it would do business in ensuing years.

The owner and team had a focus on Lean operations (reducing waste while boosting efficiency and value) and in turn showed the Chandos team the potential of collaborative project delivery and influenced its use of both a Lean approach and the Last Planner system (an effective type of collaborative planning amongst design team leaders).

This in turn influenced projects like the Barrie-Simcoe Emergency Services Campus, where the company used IPD along with Virtual Design Construction (VDC) technologies such as 4D and 5D imaging and BIM-enabled (Building Information Modelling) platforms, further influencing markets like Ontario to adopt IPD and collaborative building for future work. It’s also notable that the Barrie-Simcoe Emergency Services Campus project team diverted 94 percent of waste – one of the highest diversion rates the company has recorded.

Other contracts of note include the company’s work on College of The Rockies in Cranbrook, BC; five buildings constructed to meet Passive House standards: quality design and craftsmanship with superior windows and a high level of insulation and heat recovery. This is the first multi-dwelling complex in Canada to be constructed to Passive House standards.

Hancock also recalls the Blatchford Energy District System project as one of note, as it was the first renewable energy system of its kind in residential and commercial development in the Blatchford subdivision of Edmonton, Alberta. At every turn, Chandos sees projects like these as the opportunity to step out and take leadership, not just on a job, but within the entire construction industry.

Given that 85 percent of the company’s pending work in early 2020 was taxpayer-funded, Chandos found itself in an enviable position around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions; in fact, it noted a record year in sales and net income in 2020.

Safety measures were increased on job sites while shared services and office staff switched to working from home, with institutions like a Friday stand-up meeting (meant to share ideas, improvements, and information) providing a point of information to employees and a much-needed sense of normalcy as production continued.

How these changes will affect the future of the company is too soon to tell but Coldwell emphasizes that flexibility and the ability to adapt to new situations will continue to be of utmost importance.

With these new measures in mind, Chandos will soon be underway with a project in Vancouver for BC housing, to construct an affordable housing and withdrawal management centre. Many at the company, including Tim Coldwell, have a passion for social procurement and will be working to meet a voluntary commitment of 10 percent community benefits through the construction process on the BC Housing project. Trades will look to employ local workers and those from equity-seeking groups.

The company’s climate strategy will also be a significant factor for the rest of the year, as the company looks to put a strong greenhouse emission-reduction plan into effect.

Company announcements are also on the way about its move toward Net Zero carbon, and more will be revealed before the end of the year. Coldwell notes that the company has continued to diversify its revenue geographically and has been growing from its initial Alberta location into places like Toronto, Ottawa, Kelowna, and Vancouver.

And as Chandos experiences growth and success as a national contractor, sixty percent of the company’s revenue is now sourced from outside the Prairies.

Coldwell summarizes by underlining that Chandos is a service business and a business for people: “So much is driven by culture and people and how they work with each other. Chandos is a purpose-driven national technical builder that is leading change in the Canadian construction industry.”

The post Industry Innovators<p class="company">Chandos Construction</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Along with supporting the design, construction, and operation of low carbon-emitting multi-family buildings in New York, Bright Power also supports the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). This program will help New York State achieve economy-wide carbon neutrality with an 85 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Bright Power also offers a wide variety of consulting services, including design, construction management and installation of solar, HVAC, and lighting systems.

Design and construction includes Passive House principles, a building design standard that typically performs to an extremely high standard with significantly lower operation costs – up to a 90 percent reduction in heating and cooling demands, and up to a 75 percent reduction in overall energy demand – while still providing comfort and a healthy environment for users and residents of the building.

Key principles
“These buildings are typically more resilient to power outages because of the five key design principles they employ. Those principles are: no thermal bridging between materials, superior high-performance windows, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery and filtration, increased insulation in the thermal envelope, and a super airtight construction,” says Carmel Pratt, Director of New Construction. “This is helping New York meet its strict and aspirational climate goals.”

New York City has new legislation that limits buildings’ carbon emissions, beginning in 2024 with a set cap for buildings larger than 25,000 square feet, with a plan to further reduce that in 2030.

So developers will need to double down on the high-performance and energy-efficient aspects of the buildings that they’re developing now to meet those future limits in 2024 and 2030, otherwise they’ll end up paying hefty fines.

As well as being in accordance with those climate goals, Bright Power is also providing sustainability features and design support on new developments that have been awarded funding in the Buildings of Excellence Competition, administered by The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

Bright Power contributed to 14 Buildings of Excellence projects, working on five of the second round of awardee projects, all of which have Passive House-inspired design, with four actively seeking Passive House certification. These are: The Rise, developed by Xenolith Partners and designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC; Bethany Terraces Senior Houses, developed by Riseboro Community Partnership and designed by Paul A. Castrucci Architects PLLC; Dekalb Commons developed by St. Nicks Alliance and designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC; Linden Boulevard Phase 3 developed by Radson Development and designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC.

“As with Passive House, it’s great that the carbon emission law does incentivize electrifying your buildings. In theory electricity should have a lower carbon coefficient or footprint, but it’s hard to electrify in New York City because of how expensive electricity is,” says Andrea Mancino, Executive Vice President, New York.

“Passive House buildings use significantly less energy than typical buildings,” she says. “Even if you aren’t pursuing Passive House, a really strong strategy to meet the carbon emissions law is to reduce how much energy you’re using, even if it is fossil fuels. It’s the best thing you can do if electrification isn’t on the table.”

New York State sets standards
New York’s energy code is a unique and innovative law that other cities and states are replicating, so expect new buildings and renovations to be held to a very high standard in accordance with its code.

“This law comes out of the Climate Mobilization Act which impacts all boroughs of New York City, along with pre-existing local laws,” adds Pratt. “The Climate Mobilization Act has laws written into it to reduce energy, but they also look at environmental justice and how we’re serving communities that have been historically disadvantaged by energy codes, by power plants, and by Green Workforce Development that hasn’t necessarily included them,” she explains. “That’s important when we’re talking about creating a brighter, more sustainable future. You need to include the people who are impacted by these buildings.”

The company did a recent study in partnership with other industry experts comparing six multi-family Passive House properties against buildings that were built to baseline code. That study found that Passive House buildings would easily meet the 2030 targets, including the notched-up targets set by this legislation. All but one Passive House property in the study would meet the strict projections for 2050 – a goal of 80 percent reduction – while the conventionally built, code minimum pure buildings did not meet those limits.

“New York is setting the standard,” says Mancino. “It’s really exciting. It’s first-of-its-kind legislation, and really nationally acclaimed at this point. Other cities are looking at New York. I think we all hope in this industry that it sets a precedent, not just for legislation, but also for energy codes across the nation.”

Find, Fix, Follow
Bright Power’s “Find-Fix-Follow” approach allows the company to leverage utility-performance data of upwards of 100,000 buildings, using energy data to identify priority projects or projects that are right for a retrofit. In conjunction with going into a building and investigating opportunities, the company’s also looking at how the building is consuming energy through data from utilities.

“Once we identify the opportunities, and the energy-conservation measures that we want to implement, we actually convert those into a retrofit project, where we go in and implement energy conservation measures,” says Mancino.

“We use a turnkey process, where we hire subcontractors to install measures and perform the project management. Then, we make sure everything is commissioned, that the building is operating the way it should, either with old equipment that was there, or new equipment that we’ve installed. We just want to make sure everything is operating as well as it possibly can once the project is complete.”

After collecting all relevant utility data of the building, Bright Power can analyze this, revealing how the building performed after the retrofit versus before, and from this comparison see whether they were actually able to save energy.

“By implementing our MoBIUS Service as an add-on to the retrofit, we’re able to continuously monitor the building even after we’ve completed the project. This is a really critical way to ensure our customers are hitting their savings targets,” she adds.

Bright Power’s MoBIUS allows the company to have data and do real-time energy monitoring using sensors and information from the building. That’s paired with a human element where an engineer assigned to the project looks at both how the building is consuming energy and any data received from the real-time monitoring. That sets Bright Power apart, as a lot of companies will just set up a dashboard or widget that furnishes raw information. There needs to be someone to convert that into measured and suitable action.

“Our company and engineers develop a very tight relationship with building staff,” says Mancino. “We’re able to talk to them in real time and have them look into any issues and help resolve them. We also focus heavily on creating operation and maintenance plans, and training site staff to be proactive.”

“We’re not just identifying issues as they show up, but proactively working with building operators as they operate and maintain the building to achieve energy savings, ensuring the useful life of the equipment is prolonged.”

Tangible benefits
This combination of training, real-time energy management, and continuously commissioning different systems ensures there’s a flat typical energy usage with no major spikes.

“This is really important for the comfort of people in the building,” says Pratt. “If people are comfortable, they’re getting enough heating and cooling, property management isn’t getting complaints, everyone’s costs are low, and we know that we’re doing a good job. We’re able to verify, not just through our data, but also from people’s own feedback about living in the building, that what we’re doing is working.”

Bright Power typically works with customers who see the benefit in energy savings and want to understand the technology. The company also provides education and training to developers or portfolio property managers.

“People have really seen the benefit,” says Pratt. “There are different ranges of the service. You can be really granular in what you monitor or you can be less data-driven, optimizing building operations where we have more building staff to work with and less data. So there are different flavors of the service.”

A perfect example of the convergence of these services is Park Avenue Green, a project owned and developed by Omni New York LLC and a Buildings of Excellence awardee. This PHIUS Passive House-certified property has MoBIUS in place to monitor a variety of systems.

These include the solar PV system, cogeneration system, condensing boilers, the variable refrigerant flow for the heating and cooling of both the indoor and outdoor units of energy-recovery ventilators or ERVs, responsible for the constant continuous ventilation, and also the make-up air units.

All of these systems are being monitored in real time on an ongoing basis.

“There are definitely hiccups and some difficulties in operating these new kinds of innovative technology. They are a bit of a learning curve for building operators, but we’re seeing a significant and stable energy consumption and reduction from Park Avenue Green in comparison to its neighboring property Morris Avenue Apartments,” says Pratt. Morris, for example, has a larger spike in energy usage, especially in the colder months, indicating the resiliency of the Passive House envelope even in extreme weather. Bright Power and Omni New York LLC are comparing the operations data from the two buildings as part of the Buildings of Excellence Competition.

“I want to point back to the people aspect,” says Pratt. “This type of standard and the benefits you get from a Passive House building are most important for an affordable-housing population which Park Avenue Green is. About 90 percent of the new construction work we do is in affordable housing, but it’s also a theme across the buildings that we’re involved in with the Buildings of Excellence Competition.”

Going national with Mobius
Bright Power’s bright future includes expanding into the Northeast Corridor, Boston, and Washington, DC, but the biggest project involves expanding MoBIUS to be implemented nationally, looking at services currently offered, and working on how to scale them at more of a national level.

Within New York, Bright Power’s biggest effort will be helping prepare customers for the mandatory 2024 and 2030 caps. Bright Power also remains dedicated to more Passive House projects, examining materials used, and employing a holistic approach for high performance that includes everything from how the building is made and what it’s constructed from to how it consumes energy – all while making it affordable.

“How do we make these standards and these systems cost-effective and replicable across affordable housing at scale so the most people can benefit from this and more developers can see these examples?” asks Pratt.

“We want them to say ‘Yes, we can do this,’ and for them to understand this is why it’s not scary or super expensive. There’s a learning curve, but we can get around it.”

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As a future-forward provider of integrated real estate services, BGO has built its success upon the ability to establish clear business imperatives that grow value for its clients long term. This is how the company builds lasting relationships based upon trust: clients know their best interests and their corporate objectives are being prioritized and fulfilled.

The professionals at BGO are driven to discover new and innovative ways to reduce costs, improve building performance and elevate the attractiveness of the real estate assets they manage for clients and their tenants. Part of that attractiveness is a focus on sustainability.

“In Canada, we invest on behalf of institutional investors with a longer-term outlook,” explains Brandon Malleck, Director, Operations and Projects. “Environmental stewardship and the sustainability of our assets perfectly aligns with the mandates we have been given where the climate resilience of the buildings we manage and the well-being of the surrounding community are equally important measures of success.”

With US$62 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2021 for over 750 clients and partners around the world, BGO looks beyond conventional systems and business strategies to generate greater value for its clients. “The asset management group is heavily engaged in how the buildings operate from a carbon perspective and of course from a financial perspective,” notes Malleck. “They’re pushing us on the site side because they see that we have these targets, and we are educating and engaging in a conversation about how we’re going to get there.”

A new way to measure performance and value
BGO is shifting the conversation from energy to carbon in the real estate market, redefining the metrics used to measure performance and value. By doing so, its operations teams can better gauge the environmental impact of buildings and articulate those findings.

“We are very thoughtful and careful approaching things – everything from our EDI initiatives to environmental initiatives,” explains Malleck. “Many of our competitors are talking about net zero – and have net zero targets, but we spend a lot of time thinking about what that means.”

For instance, targets are becoming increasingly challenging, which means greater effort is required to identify viable solutions that will contribute to improved overall building performance, both from a financial and environmental standpoint.

‘’The targets are slowly moving toward net zero, challenging us to up our game and get creative. The greatest challenge is found in finding the right metric,” explains Malleck. “We’re not reporting on the data that matters; the data that matters is what the environment sees.”

Carbon accounting is calculated based on an annual average (total emissions annually divided by the amount of electricity produced). As emissions vary at different times (of the year, season, day, hour), carbon accounting in this way is an insufficient measure of emissions.

As Malleck notes, “If we’re looking at the average carbon emissions over the course of a year, we’re not going to think about things like solar panels or batteries that store electricity in generators at night and use during the day because those technologies are largely beneficial when they allow us to use electricity based on the times when the grid is the cleanest.”

He adds, “Where data is available, we should be using real-time emissions factors for determining electricity-generated carbon emissions. These emissions vary significantly over the course of the day as Ontario uses a variety of generating sources (hydro, nuclear, natural gas). It’s about measuring what matters.”

To ensure decisions are informed and data-driven at BGO, utility tracking is available to employees at each of its sites, which enables the team to access real-time performance data from which to optimize operations to ensure targets like net zero are not only measurable, but achievable. Likewise, this tracking goes a long way toward improving air quality and temperatures for tenant comfort and health.

For instance, the use of advanced control systems that track carbon emissions based on occupancy and use, adjusted at fifteen-minute intervals, enables maximum efficiency by bringing in the appropriate amount of outside air, thus reducing the need for energy to heat or cool excess amounts of air. This is a key component of BGO’s strategy to reduce energy use on site.

The path to net zero
When it comes to meeting emissions reductions targets and commitments to accords like the Paris Agreement, the greatest environmental impact will not come from new construction, but rather the existing buildings that represent the majority of emissions. Advanced control systems are a start but are only one aspect to the path to net zero.

“From an environmental perspective we have to get to net zero, and we can’t do it with conventional energy,” says Malleck. This conviction informed the approach he has taken at 100 Murray Street, a six-storey building in Ottawa’s ByWard Market.

The building was purchased by Sun Life Financial Inc. in 2011. Already top Energy Star rated at the time, BGO helped it to become the first CaGBC zero carbon performance (ZCB) certified commercial building in Canada.

The project was built upon a two-pronged strategy: an aggressive approach to energy reduction via building hardware and energy management operations and the ability to purchase enough renewable energy offsets to achieve net zero status, which were necessary without the capacity to generate energy on site.

The building featured triple pane windows designed to allow maximum natural light and passive solar warming to occur, and additional elements were incorporated to manage energy consumption, water use and waste on site.

When considering energy generation on site, conventional solar was not practical, as space is limited on buildings that are taller than two- to three-storeys, which is why purchasing carbon offsets was necessary. As such, BGO is working with CoGenerate, a local company that has pioneered new solar technology, an efficient solar cell with a heat sink that allows the panel to cool, transferring the heat to the building for practical use (i.e., hot water). Together with the building’s ownership and CoGenerate, BGO is implementing a pilot project using an eight-kilowatt array to test the impact of displacing emissions otherwise produced by natural gas systems. In doing so, BGO is further demonstrating the art of what is possible.

Another project that demonstrates the company’s approach to sustainability is Scotia Plaza located at 40 King Street West in Toronto, Ontario. Designed in 1988, the Plaza comprises 68-storeys of above-grade AAA Class commercial office space and also features one level of below-grade retail and four levels of parking. Scotia Plaza was one of the first major office towers in Canada to achieve LEED Platinum certification.

BGO took it a step further. In June of 2020, the commercial high-rise located in the heart of the city’s financial district became the first and the largest CaGBC Zero Carbon Building – Performance v2 certified building in Canada, a feat that was achieved using highly robust and efficient metering and energy monitoring systems, just as at 100 Murray.

New tools, innovative approaches, and a culture of empowerment
At BGO, the calibre of talent and the degree of innovation that is taking place is possible only because efforts have been made to promote a culture of success, ensuring that the resources and support necessary are available to make good on great ideas.

“We have a strong focus on tool development and programs which enable the property teams to create meaningful change,” says Malleck. These include the Innovation Lab, a funding program that is accessible to anyone at BGO who has an idea that is worth piloting to improve operations in some way.

Malleck has enjoyed the support of the Innovation Lab for a number of projects he has devised, including the solar pilot taking place at 100 Murray, in addition to a unique pilot program aimed at reducing costs associated with the transportation of compost at another property under his stewardship.

“It’s a piece of equipment that takes our compost – we generate about 1,000 pounds every day – and converts it into a soil amendment,” Malleck explains. This can then be used by community gardens, residents, local farms, or others who have a need while eliminating carbon emissions associated with compost transportation.

The Innovation Lab is where the great ideas that are born at BGO are vetted and become reality, and where value and environmental stewardship go hand in hand. Empowering change can be part of a culture of success and when great care is taken, both the built and natural environments can thrive.

“We are all on the same team working together toward a common goal,” says Malleck. “One of the reasons I joined the organization was BGO’s tangible commitment to the environment. It’s not just a greenwashing, but a deep cultural commitment from the CEO to building operators,” that is taking what it means to be sustainable to new levels.

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