Numbers vs. Real Life

The New York Times is reporting this morning that the 1st Quarter of 2008 experienced the same growth as the last quarter of 2007, and although it is lackluster the fact that the growth remained the same, rather than declining, may be an indication that we aren't in a recesession afterall. But economists are still disputing the issue, and rising food and gas prices partnered with increased unemployment and the crashing housing and mortgage markets certainly aren't painting a rosy picture for any average person's pocketbook.
The good thing about times like these is, we've seen them before and we know they will pass.

My wall has a crack in it. Should I be concerned?

That depends on where the crack is, and how it has been behaving. Some cracks are caused by simple masonry expansion or shrinkage and are normally not a cause for alarm. Other cracks, such as over a door or window opening, could lead to instability and can be very serious. Contact a structural engineer to help you out - especially if you have noticed the crack getting wider recently. Find out the cause of the crack before attempting any repairs.
The type of repair the engineer chooses depends on if the crack is active or dormant . Active cracks open and close with regular cycles of temperature, loads, or foundation movement. Either cure the source of the movement and repoint the crack with mortar, or use a flexible crack filler such as sealant. You can also cut in a new movement joint at a convenient location, and then repoint the original crack. Dormant cracks that have not moved in several years are usually safe to grind out and repoint with mortar.

The Price of a Name

A consultant for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has conducted a study on the government's program to force employers to fire anyone whose name and Social Security number don't match. While the program is designed to drastically reduce illegal immigration by making it impossible for the illegal immigrants to get jobs, anyone who has had a name change through marriage or divorce, or anyone whose name is misspelled or there's a typo when their name is entered into the system would also get fired. The study estimates that the program will cost employers $1 billion a year and cost legal workers billions in lost wages.
Having spent the last three years trying to get the Social Security system to agree to change my card to match my name, I can clearly see how a lot of legal workers are going to get nailed by this system. The Department of Motor Vehicles refused to renew my drivers license because they got a mismatch letter on me. I ended up reverting to my maiden name, rather than having my application to change my Social Security card to my legal, married name rejected for a fourth time. (Didn't like my birth certificate, didn't like my marriage certificate, Needed to keep my drivers license in their file.....)
How many people will lose their jobs under similar circumstances? How many employers will close their doors because they can't keep workers?
Fortunately, the $1 billion price tag for this "fire for mismatch" program is so high that it triggered a federal law which requires the Department of Homeland Security to do further analysis of the issue before it can implement the law.

Construction Growth is Coming

According to the Portland Cement Association's Chief Economist, we are officially in a recession but we will recover within 18 months. By 2010 growth will return. This matches pretty closely with projections from the Colorado State Goverment's workforce data that show the Construction Workforce will grow by 100,000 workers by 2015 - that's a 30% increase in 7 years. Construction companies are gearing up with hiring fairs. Yesterday we were at the Colorado Construction Career Days job fair.
Here's how the Denver Post described it:

Wanted: Brick-and-mortar skills
Housing market may have toppled, but not the need for construction workers
By Aldo Svaldi The Denver Post
Getting workers who once built homes to build gas pipelines, light-rail tracks and commercial buildings has become a key challenge for the state's construction industry.
"There has to be some transfer of the workforce from residential to commercial," said Michael Gifford, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Colorado.

Here's a link to the whole article:
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_9031931

Rockies Report Card

Colorado College has created its 5th annual State of the Rockies report card. This annual research project looks at the issues that impact Colorado, Wyoming and Montana as well as states that neighbor the Rockies states. This year's report takes a good look at immigration and affordable housing, both of which have a huge impact on the construction industry. Ironically, the report shows there are fewer immigrants here than there used to be. (Wonder if that's because Congress let H2B expire and we don't have the legal immigrant workforce we need to do business in this area??? Meanwhile douglas Bruce is asserting that we don't need legal immigrant labor in Colorado, which proves he doesn't have a clue about how the state's economy works!) Anyway, the report gives a good look at the critical issues impacting this region.
www.coloradocollege.edu/stateoftherockies/reportcard.html

Happy Earth Day

Masonry materials have always been recognized as sturdy and attractive, but few realize that they are energy-efficient and earth-friendly, too. In today’s environmentally conscious world, masonry materials are “green” throughout their life cycle.
Brick originates from Colorado’s own clay, which is a nearly inexhaustible natural resource. During the clay mining process, virtually no harm is done to the environment. In fact, a single mining site may be used for more than a century. After a clay mine has been depleted, the pits can be converted into solid waste landfills or lakes for sports, recreation or conservation use.
There is no waste when brick is manufactured. For every pound of clay, nearly one pound of brick is produced with only slight moisture and mineral loss. In contrast, the mining of ore for steel production is 70 percent waste. Higher still is the amount of waste, 88 percent, in the mining for aluminum. The waste from both of these processes must be disposed of, a process that also uses considerable energy.
Most of the energy costs associated with producing brick – drying and firing – are lower than with most other building materials. It can take 90 times more energy to produce one pound of aluminum than to produce the same amount of brick.
Because brick is locally produced, very little energy is used to transport it to the building site. In contrast, most of the lumber used in Colorado home construction comes from somewhere else, adding to its cost and to its impact on our environment.

Thrilling Work

A team of apprentices and volunteer masons is hard at work installing brick veneer on a Habitat for Humanity tri-plex in Denver. Using materials donated by Rio Grande and A.P. Eberlein, Masons from C. Morgen Masonry and some of John Foley’s apprentices from Front Range Community College (with full support from their employers at Berich Masonry and QM Company) are making the Habitat house one of the nicest looking homes on Thrill Place in the Park Hill neighborhood. In addition to the materials, estimates are that 224 hours of foreman and mason man-hours are being donated to the project along with 230 tender hours. Next month, another team of masons will work with apprentices from Greg Comb’s class to veneer a Habitat duplex on Glencoe. Using brick is a new construction concept for Habitat in Denver. RMMI Technical Director Diane Travis worked with architect Peter Hynes to design the veneer on the tri-plex and duplex.

A scary thought from the New York Times editorial board

This editorial is running in today's New York Times, and it presents some concerning information for anyone who has to work for a living in America.

Immigration, Off the Books
Every American who has a job or wants one should be following the debates in Congress over bills to crack down on illegal hiring. Employment verification is one of the few ideas still lurching around the Capitol after last year’s Senate shootout mowed down a forest of immigration reforms. It’s boring and complicated — it’s about databases — but unlike other immigration fixes, it affects every worker and employer in America, native-born or not.
Two House bills — the SAVE Act, sponsored by Heath Shuler, and the New Employee Verification Act, sponsored by Sam Johnson — are designed to squeeze illegal immigrants out of the country by making it impossible for them to find work.
Immigration reform is always tricky, but employment verification is where the details get demonic.
It starts with a flawed database that everyone would have to rely on to get work or change jobs. Think of the “no-fly” list, the database of murky origins with mysterious flaws that you, the passenger, must fix if you are on it and want to fly. These immigration bills seek to take small, badly flawed “no-work” lists and explode them rapidly to a national scale. With an error rate of about 4 percent, millions of citizens could be flagged as ineligible to work, too.

- the whole editorial can be found at www.nytimes.com

Do-it-yourselfers try to win some money

The Do-It-Yourself Network is having a Sweat Equity Challenge
Starting April 28, 2008 at 9am ET, the show will ask questions during each daily episode of Sweat Equity with Amy Matthews. Log on to DIYnetwork.com and enter the correct answer and be entered into a drawing for a chance to win $100,000 in CASH! You could also be a lucky daily or weekly winner who will receive either a $10,000 or $1,000 Home Depot Gift Card! http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/sweepstakes

If you prefer looking at the work someone else has done, Boulder is offering Historic home tours. The tickets are $12 to $18 and can be obtained at www.historicboulder.org or by calling 303-444-5192.

Back to the 80s

Remember Alex Keating and "Family Ties"? The 80s are back! At least in the residential construction market.
New construction of single-family homes, considered the core of the housing market, dropped to 680,000, or 5.7% below last month's number. Single-family housing starts have not been this low since May 1980.
Applications for building permits, considered a reliable sign of future construction activity, fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 927,000 in March. That's 5.8% below the revised 984,000 rate in February. Economists were expecting permit applications to fall to 970,000.
Construction of new multi-family housing declined to a rate of 680,000 from 721,000 last month.

I have an old historic building that needs some joints repointed. What mortar should I use?

Your old historic building needs a different mortar type than the mortar types used in modern masonry construction. Most historic buildings were constructed with bricks and mortar that are much softer and more permeable than modern bricks and mortar. The use of modern mortar to repoint soft masonry can result in long-term problems such as spalling and cracking of bricks, as well as moisture transmission problems. Prior to the introduction of Portland cement to the masonry industry in the early 1900s, all masonry was constructed with lime mortar. The lime used was not the same as the hydrated lime used in modern masonry, so historic mortars cannot be replicated by simply leaving out the Portland cement from your mortar recipe. There are several options for replicating the properties of old mortar, including mortar formulations with small amounts of Portland cement, and the use of small-batch craft limes available from Europe and some manufacturers in the United States. It is also important to use aggregates that match the original in sand type and in the aggregate particle size distribution, and to match the color. A mortar analysis that includes measurement of the aggregate gradation and the binder to aggregate ratio is helpful for designing an appropriate mix.
Guidance for the design of a mortar mix appropriate for your building can be found from many sources, including the National Park Service Preservation Briefs (www.nps.org), the Historic Scotland (www.historic-scotland.gov.uk ), and the Association for Preservation Technology. The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) provides ASTM C 270, Standard Specification for Masonry Mortar, the standard for modern masonry mortar.

Workforce shortages across the country were made worse when Congress allowed part of the the H2B program to expire last year, dramatically reducing the number of LEGAL migrant workers in this country. Construction, restaurants and ski areas have been on their knees since Jan. 2 when all the H2B Visas were snapped up for the entire year by noon.
I got a big kick out of this editorial from today's New York Times regarding the latest snafoos from Congress's efforts to straighten out immigration:
"Immigration, Outsourced"
Not content to botch immigration policy all by itself, Congress has handed large parts of the job to others to mishandle. It gave the homeland security czar the czarist powers to overturn any law and ignore any court to seal the border. Now Michael Chertoff is clear-cutting a forest of regulations to wall out Mexico by the end of the year. And through the program known as 287(g), his agency is parceling out duties to a growing number of local police and sheriff’s departments, raising an army of junior deputies in the war on illegal immigrants.

read the entire editorial at www.nytimes.com

Q. I am planning to build an anchored stone veneer wall with 4” deep rough, natural stones stacked in a random ashlar pattern. Do I need air space?

A. You need the air space to be solidly grouted to stabilize the uneven stones. The grout pack will shrink and pull away from the building paper (which you have stapled in front of the sheathing, right?). This gap will only be 1/16” wide or so, but it is a continuous slot where moisture can slip down the wall, hit the flashing and weep out of the wall. I recommend 100% cotton rope as weeps for this system.

The Chinese did it

This is interesting - according to the latest expert, it's China's fault that the American residential market is in the tank. It's not the American sub-prime mortgage lenders, it's not the American people who bought more house than they could afford. It's not thousands of American homeowners running away in the middle of the night and letting their homes go into foreclosure. It's the Chinese's fault. OK. Well, read the article for yourself and see if you follow his reasoning
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/apr/03/housing-put-in-perspective/

Play nice when the economy is down

US. Sen. Ken Salazar is trying to make business and labor play nice in the sandbox. He's telling both sides that while the economy is down, they need to work together. Maybe they can fight when the economy gets better?
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_8803870

Jobless Claims Up

The government is reporting that unemployment claims have hit a 2-year high. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance jumped by a seasonally adjusted 38,000 to 407,000 for the week ending March 29. We've heard that the masonry business is slow in other parts of the country and that masons are sitting idle, but when we invite them to Colorado, where there is a plethora of jobs and a shortage of trained masons, they won't come. Why enjoy a paying job and spring & summer in the Rocky Mountains when you can sit at home on your couch and try to survive on unemployment? Go figure.

On a sad note, OSHA will be busy today in Arkansas:
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Three construction workers fell from a work platform that collapsed Wednesday and were presumed dead after falling from a highway bridge into the swollen Arkansas River.
There was no sign of the men for more than an hour after their fall, Little Rock Fire Capt. Jason Weaver said. Divers could not enter the water because the current was too swift

Unions vs Business in Colorado

We are a merit shop trade association, and while most of our contractor members are non-union, some of them are union. It presents an interesting political situation as the battle between business and unions continues to heat up in Colorado. In Sunday's Denver Post the Editorial questioned whether bringing the Democratic National Convention to the Mile High City is worth the power it has given the unions over the city. "The economic shot-in-the-arm, whatever the total actually ends up being, will be a welcome boost," the Post Editorial Writers expounded. "But we're beginning to question whether the short-term benefit is worth the long term expenses."
The battle was further escalated when the unions proposed five ballot initiatives for the fall election to counter the business-backed "right to work" ballot initiative. Here's the full story: http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_8763664