August 30, 2010

Well it took some time, but the results are in. After the new roof was completed in January of this year on the St. Mary’s school roof, several things have happened. They include;

My son has graduated from the school, yeah Jaren!;

DuroLast Roofing has completed several new projects in Southern California over the past months, Congratulations Scott Franklin;

Bligh Roof Company has completed several projects, including the new roof on the Stardust Room of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Way to go Jay, Tim, Randy and the rest of the guys. AND The school has provided me with their SDG&E (San Diego Gas and Electric) bills for the first two quarters of 2009 and 2010.

With this information, we can compare the energy use from 2009 Pre DuroLast roof installation to the energy use Post DuroLast roof installation. All things considered, we now have a good idea of what the benefit is after installing the new white PVC roof membrane above and beyond stopping the ongoing leaks that were occurring every year.

You can read more about this project at www.westernroofing.com You can go to the July/August archives for the article on this roofing installation.

I reviewed the temperatures for the periods that are being compared. The average temperature in Aliso Viejo, CA., in January 2009 was 72 degrees and in 2010 it was 66 degrees. The average temperature at the school in June was 73 degrees in 2009 and 74 degrees in 2010. Over the first and second quarter the temperatures (with the exception of the one listed for January above) were almost even from 09 to 2010. With that in mind, we can review the energy use and dollars paid to see what the savings would be after installing the new DuroLast PVC white reflective membrane on the school.

The verdict is what we expected and what the school was very pleased to see. Over the first two quarters the schools energy use was down meaning they were paying less in heating and cooling bills. The average savings was 14% over this timeframe. As you might expect it was a little lower during the cooler days, however it was up to 20% in June of this year with the average temperature being almost the same. What is the school’s dollar savings. First of all, you have to remember this is a private school that depends solely on the tuition and donations for funding. So to save money at all is a great benefit. Over the course of 2010, the school could realize up to $20,000 in savings for the 12 month period. That my friends, is a wonderful reality!

The head of school and the board should be happy. We hoped for this benefit and with the help of DuroLast, Bligh Roof Company and Larry Schuler (Head of building and grounds committee) the school can move on to teaching the young leaders of tomorrow. Oh, yeah and hopefully they will call D 7 when they need assistance on the remaining roof areas! That should help them save even more money! Talk to you soon.

We will be taking them out of the box and then training on the use of the Ipad.  Snippies (www.snippies.com) will be on hand to video and prepare the promotional aspect for Box.Net.  This is the other part of the program.  The part that is most important to D 7 is getting the maximum efficiency out of the Ipad for our services in the Building Envelope Consulting business.

We are getting ready to embark on a new path of work flow.  What used to take days will now take hours and in some cases minutes.  Getting information from the field to the office and into the client’s hands has always been the most difficult part of our work.  Through Box.Net we will be able to have the information in the office before the Quality Assurance Observer or Consultant is back from the field.  Having this head start on the document(s) will save time immediately.  Not to mention the processing of photos (always a time consuming task) this can be tedious and confusing.  We will now be able to have immediate access to photos from the field.

So if you are a client who wants quick turn around, look no further than D 7 Consulting.  This will be what we do best.  Combined with our technical ability, years of experience in the roofing and waterproofing business and top notch staff of experts, why would you look elsewhere?

With over 700 contest entries, the choice was difficult. We were thrilled when Box.net informed D 7 Consulting that we had been selected as the winner of the free Ipads, etc. We are now embarking on a new and exciting journey of improving our company. With that said, the plan is simple….take our work product and transition from days or weeks to complete paper work in the field to a matter of minutes or at a maximum days at best.

Here is a short version of what we are working on:

Step One:

Quality Assurance Observer watching the installation of a waterproofing membrane on a project in Los Angeles.

Typically, the Daily Report takes several days to get from the field to the client. We will be able to take the same report and have it in the hands of the client the same day! Furthermore, the photographs of the project that sometimes take a week, will be available to the client the same day they are taken! Imagine going from Lead time to Real time!

Step Two:

Use maps or other internet based satellite images for real pictures of the roof or building. This is already being done, however with Box.net we will be putting the information directly into the hands of our Admin staff that will not have to wait until the consultant comes back into the office to develop the report. The information provided by the consultant on our preprogrammed forms will allow the Admin to put the report on his desk for review within a day or two.

Step Three:

Time sheets and other documentation that sometimes seems archaic at best, will now be completely computerized. Our documentation for all services will be handled in a speed and efficiency that will far surpass any other way we had operated before.

Step Four:

Figuring out what to do with the rest of the time we will now have on our hands! Just kidding, my hope is that all of our clients will experience much better service that they will be touting our company as the only consulting firm to work with in the future. So the extra time will be spent working on new projects for new clients.

We want to thank the people at Box.net for this exciting opportunity. You can check out the announcement at their website blog.box.net Look for more updates in the near future as we go through the month long program with Box.net. We will be putting up video of the process for you to view and hopefully gain a better understanding of the “future” of business that we know. Join us for the ride.

Back to the text message.  He was on his way to school.  My wife and I were on our way to the airport leaving Honolulu after a short trip to attend the RCI Hawaii Winter Workshop. Yes, we will be home to celebrate his birthday.  We do love him!

As I fly over the Pacific, I feel compelled to post this Industry Blog about the last 2 days of furthering my education.  I have done this for years; attending classes, workshops, presenting information to groups, but this one was different.  How you ask?  Here are some key factors: 1)  It didn’t feel like 2 pain filled days of lecture.  Mix in a little Hawaii, it helps! 2)  RCI provided a format and overall idea that were new, I believe for RCI of course! 3)  The information wasn’t new, but with the new format became fresh and relevant. 4)  I was accompanied by my wife, Janick.  This was the second time we did this.  It does work, and it was fun. 5)  I had three D 7 Consultants there as well.  Their interest and comments over dinner were great to hear. I am excited that they were interested and hopefully learned some new things.

And finally, one big thing!  It reaffirmed to our people that we are doing the right things!  Taking home the outline material and key information, we will be able to see that what D 7 does as a company is right in line with the top companies in our field.  And we can build on that having attended this function.

Where – Let’s talk about these factors:  mix in some Hawaii!  If you are considering your next conference or class and you only do one or two a year, or less!  Make it count.  Go somewhere special, some cities are nice, but attend a class in a city where you a) haven’t been before b) your wife or family hasn’t seen or c) provides a change of weather or recreation that you enjoy. 

Format – The format was a key factor.  Since 1990, I have been attending classes at either RCI or UW-Madison, etc.  This was the first for me.  A fictitious project, Faulty Towers, allowed the presenters to “construct” all the problems we might find on a project, but in smaller portions.  This allowed all to draw from personal experience, utilize great examples of deficiencies (we all have our hall of shame roofing & waterproofing photos) and provided symmetry to the program.  Now granted, there were the little glitches (cold room, audio hiccups) but hey, we aren’t working in Hollywood sound studios.  But they were minor and didn’t bother me too much.  I digress.

Having some of the top consultants as presenters*, doesn’t always work.  You know the drill, great mind – poor performer.  Well, these guys were able to make it work because of the format. And it allowed them freedom from thinking too much.  Even the lawyers (almost all of them) did a good job and their information was critical and brought value. 

D 7 has provided services to many forms of clients and on a myriad of projects.  As I walked along Waikiki Beach on my morning workout, I realized several things about life: 
-You need a plan, even if it is for just a day, a month, or a year.  Follow a plan.  You will get wherever you want to go much faster.
-Use a successful program in business.  Find one that works and use it.  Inventing new, especially in our business, doesn’t work.  If this program taught me anything, it is that we do a good job of what we do.  I have been following the same program for years.  Nuff said!
-Don’t be afraid to make changes or try to improve!  You don’t have to scrap everything you’ve tried.  If it doesn’t work, stop.  Figure it out why and try again.  People get hung up on failure.  Not one success was immediate, there have always been failure that have lead to progress or opened the door to a success. 

Work to improve on what you do.  Have someone or somebody review your work, your company.  We all can improve on something, even if it is just overall attitude adjustment.  I am looking forward to exchanging ideas with our D7 staff and making some changes (albeit small ones) related to our business model.  Nothing like being energized after a couple of days in Hawaii, listening to good sound information presented in a great format.  Check back in a few days or weeks to hear more results of this journey.

*David Knox, AIA Knox Hoversland; Jim Reinhardt, AIA Architectural Diagnostics; Richard Cook, RRC, RWC, CCS LEED AP of ADC Engineering; Karim Allana, RRC, REC, PE of Allana Buick & Bers; John D. Shepherd, RRC, RRO of Shepherd Consulting Services; Austin Sloat, AIA of Neumann Sloat Achitects, LLP; Christopher Shea Goodwin, Esquire of Christopher Shea Goodwin AAL LLC; Colin Murphy, RRC, FRCI, LEED AP of Trinity ERD; Keith Hunter, Esq., of DPR; Dana Bergeman of Allana Buick & Bers; Larry Good of Trinity ERD; Roy F. Hughes, esquire, of Hughes & Taosaka, LLC.

Now the hard part. St. Mary’s is a private school that is solely dependent on tuition for their operating budget. How could they afford to install a new roof and what would they do? With that in mind and having a son who attends the school, I provided budgets for some options available to them. The building and grounds committee, headed by Larry Schuler along with the head of school John O’Brien were then given the names of several roofing contractors to set out on the task to obtain bids for work.

When they contacted me again several months later, they had selected Bligh Roof Company; 11043 Forest Pl; Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670 562-944-9753 to perform the work. The only trouble was, when? School was out on the 19th of December and students were back on the 4th of January. Could it be done? Once they informed me of Bligh’s intent to install a Duro-last PVC single ply roof system and that Duro-last (Scott Franklin) www.duro-last.com had visited the project along with Bligh, I was relieved. They had two weeks over the holidays (that’s counting Christmas and New Years) to vacuum the gravel and install the new system. As the photos will attest, they did it. From what I understand, Bligh and Duro-last worked with the school to provide a reduced cost and payment terms in order for the school to solve their largest budget problem and building issue facing them today. A job well done by the group! The school is very happy and without the help of the two parties, Bligh Roof Company and Duro-last, would not have been able to afford to have the work done.

Now if I could just get them to help my son with his homework! All would be right with the world. Thanks guys!

The crew busy installing the roof membrane.

Working as a team is one of Bligh’s strong suits.

Attention to detail is critical to the long term performance of any roof system.

Nothing like a clean roof! With the upcoming warm days the school will save money
with the new white “cool” roof, thus lowering air conditioning bills in the future.

Corporate Headquarters for a Defense Think Tank. Hours of preparation and review were required during the design of this project.

D 7 typically becomes involved with new projects through one of the following entities:

1.An Architect contacts us based upon previous work history or knowledge of our company through other sources;
2.A Developer contacts us based upon our relationship with this company, the Architect has recommended us or a General Contractor has “dropped” our name.
3.The client or Owner has used our company in the past and requests that we work with the Design team on the project.

These are some of the more straightforward ways, there are more, but for the sake of this blog I am only listing the most common ways.

With all three, we would first develop a proposal to the “client”. In the 3 cases listed above, the client could be any one of the entities. We would typically be contracted with the Architect or the Developer/Owner, however we have been contracted at times with or through the General Contractor. Once the proposal is finalized an accepted, we can start our work on the project.

Over the years, I have developed a strategy that seems to work for our company. I have been successful in bringing many projects to completion with numerous clients, so if it isn’t broke why fix it? The first meeting with the Architect should be held early in the process of Design. This means soon after Schematic or early in Design Development (or DD for short). We do not want to be reviewing a completed set of construction documents (CD’s) when we are hired to do Design.

This signature building was built to complete the Union Station and Metropolitan Transit Authority site. Many hours of discussion and onsite review were required for this massive complex.

We need to know how the building is going to be used, where the traffic is located around and in the building. What are the materials that will make up the finishes around and on the building? Will planters, pools, ramps, fountain, etc., be part of the design? As you can see there are a myriad of questions that need to be answered. If you have been through this you know that many of these are answered and are on the DD plans. However, they may be still in Conceptual stage only. Your questions and answers that may come out of a discussion could change the finish or landscape design. So we feel it is best to review and ask the question versus finding out later that your waterproofing design won’t work with the materials being proposed for use on the project. Ask away I say. I encourage everybody to take lots of notes for the file. We refer to the notes again and again during the discussion that ensues.

Our first work product is typically a Design Narrative. This can and is typically included in the Design information that the client/developer receives. It includes an Overview of the Systems recommended, along with the description of the materials followed by the pros for choosing the system for the location that is also indicated on the Overview. We follow that up with the Design Development Specifications and basic details depicting the systems and related components.

Once this has been done, we will then be into a pricing exercise which means that further discussion about the means and methods will be required. As part of any project, there are stages of development throughout. There are milestones like 50% Design Development, 100% and so on. During this DD phase we will provide outline specs that are further developed with more and exact information as the program for the building(s) is developed. Once the 100% Construction Documents are issued all of the information must be cross checked and referenced throughout the project documents, including drawings and specifications.

Now comes the fun part. When a General Contractor has been selected (usually late in the CD phase of development) he will have identified the critical subcontractors to get contracted for work early. There are many, like Shoring, Steel and Concrete that need to be on board early. In my experience, Roofing and Waterproofing subcontractors are important to sign up early in the project as well. That means that our documents and information must be ready and be correct in order to let a contract. This means the GC and Sub will typically put us through the paces with RFI (Request for Information) and RFC (Request for Clarification) related to either the system selection or the details for the project. Questions like “how many inches of overlap is required?” and “can we use reinforcing fabric in lieu of the uncured neoprene?” You can imagine the type and number of questions. They mean well and we understand, however it is almost always due to the one big question that is asked at this point…..”How can we save more money?” When the Sub and the GC don’t ask these questions or when D 7 is not allowed to review the scope of work for the subcontractors related to roofing and waterproofing; it usually spells trouble. The assumptions that are made are many and we get the old standard…. .” The manufacturer doesn’t require that!” So when we point out the specs and details do, they want to do it in a way that isn’t what was in the contract documents.

Now when the project gets moving and the work is going to begin, D 7 will typically be involved in the CA (Construction Administration) of a project. What this means is that D 7 will be reviewing submittals, shop drawings and RFI’s that relate to our scope of work, meaning what was listed in our proposal. That is what will limit our involvement from items such as Curtain wall, etc. Which were not outlined in our proposal and contract. This way we don’t over step our area of expertise. Along with the items listed above, D 7 provides and runs the meetings that are held like Pre-Waterproofing Conference or Roofing Conference. We will document the meeting and provide the minutes to the client, GC, subs and others involved. In addition we will review mock ups of work involving waterproofing. Our meetings at the site occur throughout the installation of waterproofing or roofing to document (take a snap shot) of the ongoing work. We will review the work, discuss any changes or items of concern with appropriate parties. Each and every meeting that we are involved with or any time we are onsite, D 7 will issue a report with photographs or provide some form of documentation like details a field report or meeting summary. This historical document usually becomes valuable at some point later in the project. At the end of each installation, D 7 will provide punch list information and complete a Final Review prior to acceptance by the client, etc.

During a larger project we may have 20 to 50 meetings along with the other items listed. Smaller projects may only require 10 to 15, but it depends on the size of project and client’s requirements/request. That leads me to the last of what we provide for a project. When a client wants more than the occasional visit to the site or periodic review we provide a Quality Assurance Observer (QAO). This is a trained Field observer that works for D 7 full time and is sentenced to death on a project for sometimes months and even years. I am just kidding about the sentencing, but many of our guys have been on projects for more than 1 year and become part of the landscape in a way.

Our QAO’s are trained through in house training as well as ongoing RCI (Roof Consultants Institute) classes and certifications such as RRO (Registered Roof Observers). This is one way of making sure our guys have the knowledge and experience to do the job. D 7 is proud to say that we have the most RRO’s on staff of any consultant in Southern California and possibly all of California. Our expertise in this field is not outweighed by any competitor. The QAO’s job is simple; Observe and Document the daily activity and application of the roofing or waterproofing installation. When the contractor is performing this work, we are there to observe. If and when the work is not performed in the manner required by the Contract Documents, we then inform the appropriate parties immediately to seek resolution.

With all of the information that transpires above, it is amazing at times that all the roofing and waterproofing is installed and functions without any issues. But that is the goal. Not that installing doors isn’t difficult or a light switch isn’t important, but if the roofing or waterproofing isn’t working, it isn’t just fixed or changed. It becomes a major issue on a project. That is why we take such an active interest in what we do. We want to be successful every time. We need to be successful each and every time! There is no room for error. At least that is what I have found out after 22 years of doing this type of work.

I would love to hear about your experiences with designing a project. As you can see on our website www.d7consulting.com we have a variety of projects ongoing at this time. Please review our current project list and let me know if you have any questions. Until next time. Joe