Minimize moisture content on your wall sheathing?
Did your wall sheathing get wet? Well, best listen to the Ol’ Sage Builder regarding the maximum moisture content before closing up your walls.
Builder Insights / Blog
How to Get Rid of Punch Lists
“Buy cheap, buy twice…” is how the saying goes. The same logic can be applied to your building company. Investing in cheap labor, materials or tools can cause you headaches and cost you both in time and money. Call backs are expensive and they wreck havoc with your scheduling. Here are some ways choosing quality …
Corrections to OSHA Fall Protection Standards
OSHA’s Personal Fall Protection System Standards were released last year, but contained some errors. Corrections took effect in December 2019. Some of the corrections included updating the gate strength of protective equipment like D-rings, carabiners and snaphooks. These items must be proof tested to a minimum tensile load of 3,600 pounds without any damage. Side …
4 Alternatives to AutoCAD
The building design industry is dominated by Autodesk’s AutoCAD drafting software. One drawback of this software is its annual $1,610 per user price tag. For smaller construction firms or freelance workers, this may be too hefty. Luckily, there are alternatives that still provide all the same AutoCAD perks like 2D and 3D modeling. Vectorworks Architect …
Paint Colors That Can Make Your Walls Look Dingy
Picking the right paint color is a tricky business. It’s difficult to know what the color will look like on a wall when all you have to go on is a tiny paint swatch. One thing you may not expect is that some colors can actually make your walls look dirty, especially in the low-light …
Construction Employment Numbers Have Gone Up in 226 Metro Areas
Out of the 358 Metro areas analyzed by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) between November 2018 and November 2019, 63% registered increases in employment numbers. Thanks to the current labor shortage, most construction companies expect to add workers in 2020, although some fear it will be challenging to fill positions. A recent AGC survey discovered that …
Best Construction Calculators
Measure twice, cut once – you know it, you love it and here’s an easy way to make sure you get it right. A construction calculator needs to be portable and practical so you can solve those construction math problems on the fly. Jobber 6 Great for construction calculations and converting between metric and US. …
Does OSB emit Volatile Organic Compounds?
We recently received a message from one of our readers, and the Ol Sage thought he would pass it along as it is important to be concerned about Volatile Organic Compounds.
Blower Door Testing 101
Building enveloped that perform poorly reduce energy efficiency, increase ROI times, and increase carbon footprints and utility bills for building owners. A blower door test can help to establish the airtightness of small to medium buildings, measure the flow of air between different areas in a building and test the airtightness of ductwork.
Understanding R-value and U-value
Knowing what R-value and U-values mean is key to following energy issues and to selecting products that best suit the climate zone you are building in. R-value is essentially a product’s resistance to heat flow. Adversely, U-value measures the rate of heat transfer. This means that products with a lower U-value will be more energy efficient. It is tempting to think that these two values are direct opposites of each other, but there are some important differences to note.
