A publication of the Concrete Foundations Association
Concrete Facts Magazine Online
Feature
The Tropics Call Contractor to Build Concrete Homes
By Wendy Shannon & Libbie Hough of Shannon & Company, a marketing communications firm for the Concrete Homes Council. K-Wall Poured Walls, Inc. is located in Traverse City, Michigan and has been in operation for the last 11 years. Kubica is the owner and president of K-Wall and is a man who loves to challenge […]
Subcontractor Agreements – What Does This Mean to Subcontractors?
Doug Staebler, Custom Concrete Company, Inc., Westfield, IN Over the past year, there has been a marked increase in the use of subcontractor agreements in residential construction. Although these agreements were used for years in commercial construction, residential contractors often operated on handshake agreements. Like it or not, those days are probably gone for good, […]
Building Officials Announce Change in Pressure Treated Lumber Materials
Ohio, as well as other states, recently warned residents and the building industry to be aware of the lumber, anchors, and fasteners used on their construction projects. The preservative-treated lumber used for the last 60 years was deemed unusable because it contains arsenic. It was replaced with a new preservative-treated lumber that contains a chemical […]
Subcontractors, Beware! Your Assumptions Can Cost You
One of the most dangerous words in the English language for subcontractors is “assume.” For example, do you assume that your company will be reimbursed for costs incurred as a result of project delays caused by another subcontractor on a project or by the general contractor? If the subcontract document doesn’t say it and the […]
Change in Lumber Affects Contractors
New preservative treated lumber requires new fasteners, bolts and anchors for most building applications. Ohio, as well as other states, recently warned residents and the building industry to be aware of the lumber, anchors, and fasteners used on their construction projects. The preservative-treated lumber used for the last 60 years was deemed unusable because it contains […]
Construction Materials in Short Supply
As the construction season heats up for the summer, the economy improves and slow construction starts begin to turn around, report s are indicating possible cement shortages. In Florida, ready mix companies are on four-day-a-week allocations and California and other U.S. markets are also on or headed toward allocations. The domino effect is that demand […]
Magazine Issues
OSHA Rescinds Fall Protection Exception for Residential Construction OSHA RESCINDS FALL
This past December, the rules for safety have changed significantly for all residential construction. The statement below summarizes the movement made to rescind a significant rule exception that exempted residential foundation contractors from fall protection requirements. We at CFA have just been alerted to this information and are researching it further to identify any further opportunities that may limit the exposure of our industry to this change […]
CFA Member Gene Gore
Daniel “Gene” Gore age 51 of Bellevue, Ohio, passed away Tuesday, December 07, 2010. He was born September 3, 1959 in Bellevue the son of Billy & Darlene (Ridings) Gore. Gene was the owner of Solid Foundations in Bellevue. He was a member of Providence Baptist Church where he was a Sunday school teacher and headed up the buildings and grounds committee, a member of the […]
I Can Hear You Now! (Tech Bit 49)
Cell phones have become an integral part of society… There are over 200 million cell phone users (that’s two out of every three people in the United States). When I sold the family rep agency in 2000, I decided to use my cell phone as my primary business phone number. With as much traveling as I’ve done since, it […]
What’s Keeping You Awake?
by Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. The other day on the radio I heard these lyrics from the Shinedown song, If You Only Knew “It’s 4:03 and I can’t sleep… I toss and turn like the sea.” I thought, “Yeah, why is it always 4AM that I wake up when I’m worried about something?” The singer of this top 10 pop rock song […]
Achieving Greatness: The Value of Association
By Don Yaeger “You’ll be amazed by what you can achieve when you surround yourselves with those headed in the same direction.” Association leaders and corporate executives have long recognized that great lessons – lessons in leadership, team building, handling adversity, and managing success – can be learned from their peers in the world of sports. This explains why some of the most sought after […]
Only the Remarkable Thrive
by Mike Foti A crowded marketplace. Hyper-competition. Trying to do more with less. The competitive treadmill has not just been taken up one notch, it’s been cranked up to full-blast! How do you not only survive, but more importantly, thrive in this environment? What are the winners doing to get results in this “full-blast” world? Recently, before a speaking engagement I delivered to a group of fast-growing companies I […]
Membership = 1000x Return
“There is a disease – an enemy – that is eating away at your knowledge, wisdom and professionalism each and every day. This disease – known as commoditization – reduces your offerings to the lowest common denominator, the competitive bid. A stinking price.” F. Scott Addis Here I sit in front of a blazing fire relaxing after a wonderful Christmas weekend spent with family and […]
CertainTeed(R) T-Roc(TM) Thermal Laminate Foundation Insulation System Achieves ICC-ES Approval
Leading North American building products manufacturer, CertainTeed Corporation, has received an evaluation report from ICC Evaluation Services, Inc. (ICC-ES), confirming that T-Roc(TM) Thermal Laminate Foundation Insulation System is building code compliant. T-Roc enables building professionals to bypass several costly, time-intensive tasks involved with turning foundations into finished walls in a livable basement space. Through the analysis of T-Roc, including testing, […]
Industry Loses Pioneer Marion Myers
Poured wall and aluminum forms pioneer Marion Myers passed away July 5th, 2010. Marion was 89 and had lived in Middletown, Ohio. He served as a pilot in the U.S. Army Corps during WWII. He established Myers Construction Company and ran a successful business for twenty years. In 1970 he bought the first aluminum forms in the state of Ohio. After his retirement he moved to […]
Dream Once Again
And “there was a man named Jabez…” In 1916 Anheuser Busch produced over more than one million barrels of beer. Production was up and the market bursting. But storm clouds were on the horizon. The Temperance movement was gaining political clout; World War I brought rationing and anti-German sentiment, which sent production downward drastically. By 1919, sales had dropped to 218,000 barrels. Then came prohibition. Events […]
CFA Elects New Board Members
Parrish Assumes Presidency CFA has announced the newest terms for its Board of Directors as well as a new President to direct its next two-year period. During the CFA Annual Convention, held earlier this year at Chateau on the Lake in Branson, Missouri, the attending members elected Van Smith of Smith Brothers Concrete in Alden, New York to a one-year term to replace Jim Rowe […]
CFA Moves On Insurance Captive
The CFA Board of Directors voted at the summer board meeting to take the next step in the CFA self-insurance program. Business may be slow but if you are doing business, you are still buying insurance. The CFA program will be modeled after the highly successful CSDA (Concrete Sawing and Drilling Association) insurance captive. That program, which suffered a setback […]
