The President has just confirmed that the DC earthquake occurred on a rare and obscure fault-line, apparently known as “Bush’s Fault”. The President also announced that the Secret Service and Maxine Waters have initiated an investigation into the quake’s suspicious ties to the Tea Party. Conservatives, however, believe that it was caused by the Founding Fathers rolling over in their graves.
Politics
Common Wage Hearing
This Monday I was asked to serve as ABC’s (Associated Builders and Contractors) representative at a Common Wage Hearing in Warsaw. The Hearing covered three sewer projects for the City of Warsaw and was held at the Kosciusko County Courthouse. This is the first Wage Hearing that I have attended since the Law changed on July 1. As of that date the five member panel no longer includes a representative appointed by the Governor’s Office but now has a member appointed by ABC. There are a couple of other changes to the Law. One is that a Wage Hearing is good for any other projects going forward for a period of three months providing that all of the wage classes named in the hearing cover the following projects. (This should reduce the number of Hearings required). The second item is a change in the project cost threshold from $150,000 to $250,000. Unfortunately due to a language error, the $250,000 threshold does not apply until January 1, 2012 and the language error caused all Hearings for the remainder of 2011 to have no threshold, i.e., any project must pay the common wage and have a hearing to set that wage.
In some ways it was apropos that I took this position as I was filling the shoes of Don Scearce. Don was a personal friend as well as a business associate for many years. I worked briefly in his office as a draftsman after college and I have a continuing relationship with his office, Scearce Rudisel Architects, to this day. Don was a staunch supporter of Merit Shop and served on countless Wage Hearings such as this striving to do the best he could for his community through these Common Wage Hearings. Unfortunately Don passed away last year. (Obituary)
The City of Warsaw and Kosciusko County have a long history of supporting ABC wages on their projects. Of the 231 construction businesses in the County, only three are signatory to unions. Since 2008 there have been 37 hearings and at 33 hearings the ABC rates were adopted. This makes the County very pro Merit Shop regardless of whether the companies are affiliated with ABC or not. The representative for the AFL/CIO brought several documents to present including a folder of affidavits from workers showing their wage rates. Unfortunately it appeared that many of those workers were not actually working in Kosciusko County though that was the implication. I also noted a significant number of the ones that I glanced through that were below the rates requested in their submission. Their submission was also heavy highway rather than providing rates across all classifications. It was not clear why they did not provide the complete list of rates but had that list been adopted, additional hearings would have been required if another building project came up.
The ABC Wages passed on a vote of 3 to 1 with the chair abstaining. Even though these projects are outside of our scope of work I still felt good about doing what I could to get the best rates for the City of Warsaw.
While I still believe that the best legislation would be a repeal of the Common Wage requirements, the changes to the new Law helped to promote competition and lower project costs for all of us. Once the $250,000 threshold is in place that will also help improve the situation Our Senators and Representatives should be commended for making this change and should be encouraged to continue the trend towards no common wage requirements.
Joe Biden and Walter Dunham are Twins!
So the other day I saw a picture of Joe Biden and couldn’t get over how much he looked like Jeff Dunham’s puppet, Walter. I went to google some pictures to prove my point and found that I’m not the only one that noticed the resemblence! Ha! There is a site here that points out what I noticed.
ABC – Mike Pence
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Michiana Council had a presentation from Mike Pence to discuss how his goals, if he becomes governor, would align with the free enterprise goals of ABC. He related several personal anecdotes on why he believes that Right-to-Work should be one of the number one goals of his administration. He expressed his belief that on many of our issues, it was a matter of educating the public. His opinion is that educating the public on issues should be one of the governor’s priorities.
He spoke elequently and made a strong case for ABC’s support of his candidancy. There appears to be only one other candidate at this time, but there may be more. If others decide to try their hand against Mr. Pence in the primary, they will find a formidable opponent. I think it’s likely that he will be the Republican candidate for governor.
Indiana Energy Code
Last Wednesday I attended a presentation/seminar on the Indiana Energy Code presented by Associated Builders and Contractors of Indiana (ABC) and Newport Ventures. Newport Ventures is supporting the State of Indiana in the adoption of the new Indiana Energy Code by conducting stakeholder meetings, developing a compliance roadmap and conducting training on the new code.
The presentation was informative and will no doubt be useful. Though Easterday Construction would not normally be involved in designing the systems discussed, it is still good for us to have a working knowledge of these things. It helps us understand them when we find them on plans, it gives us the ability to discuss them with clients before the design phase begins, and it also allows us to take the best practices found here and apply them to situations where it is not necessarily required by code.
Some of the things presented were already prevalent in the industry as “‘Best Practices”. These mainly related to insulation standards, optimized framing and building envelope tightness. Others such as changes in electrical systems and HVAC systems for reduced energy consumption have been available, but it has been left to the Owner or Developer’s choice as to whether to pursue them. Many have been promoted by the U.S. Green Building Council and tracked in their LEED Rating System and Certifications in recent years. The Indiana Energy Code is based on standards developed by ASHRAE (The American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers). While LEED and ASHRAE share some goals, their standards vary, but suffice to say that following ASHRAE standards are usually the minimum requirements for a project path toward LEED certification.
I have no doubt that all of the standards presented to me on Wednesday will save energy, as defined by the energy necessary to heat, cool, light and generally operate the facility. I was dismayed that when I asked who was researching the Return On Investment (ROI) for these systems, I was told no one. Isn’t it a bit premature to put these practices into law without assessing the final cost? Apparently not, as this was part of a Federal program where Indiana received funds to implement this.
As part of the discussion, the changes to a building HVAC system were discussed. Additional zone divisions will be required. Additional duct sensors, motorized dampers, thermostats (7 day programmable thermostats with off-hour setbacks and controlled overrides only), ducted returns (no return plenums), economizers and heat recovery systems for fresh air intakes including CO2 sensors to determine optimum fresh air requirements and low pressure fan systems will also be required. Again, nothing here struck me as ineffectual for reducing operational energy consumption… But what does it mean if you look at it holistically including construction and maintenance?
- Additional electrical control sensors – additional things to break and things that the average maintenance man won’t be able to service. Optimizing the various control system will require a complicated set-up.
- Ducted returns will require additional sheet metal and associated installation labor.
- The low volume fan systems will require larger ducts and larger heating and cooling units. This could mean additional building height due to dead space between floors for duct work, larger mechanical rooms stealing usable floor space, etc. What about the costs of these additional materials, i.e. the bricks & mortar necessary to raise a building’s height to provide additional system space?
These are just a few of the things that came to my mind during the discussion. Things which could be project killers.
There is no question that Easterday Construction will comply with the new standards. It’s the law now. It currently applies to commercial and industrial projects in Indiana, but we will take what we consider the best of these things and discuss them with residential clients as well. Some of them make sense. Some of them that may not make sense to me today, may do so in the future. I sincerely hope that someone is doing the research to prove that the front end expense (in dollars and energy consumption) of complying with these regulations will pay for itself.