While many contractors make a lot of money in a 4 month period during the summer, is there a chance you could do even better? Perhaps serve the customers better and improve your chances for referrals where there is no competition while earning trust from the consumer? Of course, YES.

Here are 10 ways to improve your company performance and keep your sanity during the hot weather.

1. Listen to your customers. Contractors often get too rushed in summer, realizing there are more customers to see in this time period then a few months ago. When moving too fast, this can cause many to stop or forget to do the very things that made them the kind of company the customer wants to see. Really pay attention to the customer. Listen to their story and don’t jump to conclusions before they finish. Repeat back what they said so you can begin earning their trust because they know you are listening. Then you can fix the problem.

2. Stay focused. Focus on the customer. Set aside the personal problems as they are not interested in your daughter’s broken arm, for instance. Leave the other customers outside your home, your family issues should not come in the house with you.

3. Make a good first impression. Yep, gotta get them booties out. I know it takes about 20 seconds to put on the carpet protectors, but it shows respect. Do it every time. And take 2 breath mints before you ring the doorbell. They don’t need to know you had garlic pizza for lunch. If you’re a smoker, at least put some Fabreeze spray on or something to help repel the smoke odor.

4. Clean shirt. Take a minute to be sure you are not wearing the last dirty service call. If you’re last service call made your shirt dirty, put on another new shirt. Yes, the back up shirt you should keep and always have available in your truck. When you use it, take the soiled shirt out of the truck that evening and get it cleaned. Also, clean up and straighten up that truck. Take 5 minutes at the end of each day to throw out the trash and make sure you have adequate supplies, with a simple quick overview to make sure you are always prepared for upcoming jobs.

5. Do a complete exam. When you go to the doctor, they take blood pressure, weight, pulse, and more, even when you tell him you have a rash on your arm. They are looking for other problems that may be a factor. We have to have that same attitude as contractors to look the entire system over. You may find a valve that leaks or another issue that, if found, could save your customer lots of money by correcting the problem early.

6. Quality over quantity. Recently, a contractor in California told me he had a tech who ran 12 calls the day before. Really? In California traffic? I did not ask how many he had to go back on, but when we are rushed, mistakes happen that can cost customers money and ultimately, yor company more future business. So a company may have to tell a customer the reality: to do this job correctly, you will be there tomorrow, or in two days if necessary. Realize the customer doesn’t want to hear this, but the dispatcher has to know there is a physical limit to what the company can do in a given day. This ultimately is good for the customer and your business. Stacking on more calls can weaken your effectiveness and your bottom line.

7. Start a maintenance agreement program. Yep, start it now! This is especially beneficial when you service HVAC units in addition to plumbing services. When you come upon a nasty problem, tell the customer the truth, they need a precision tune up and professional cleaning. In many cases, the unit has a problem that can be traced back to a lack of maintenance. You can even schedule that tune up for October, when the units are not used as much and it’s a more convenient time for your customer.

8. Do immediate maintenance on older equipment. If you have a customer contact you that has older equipment, schedule maintenance to be done quickly. Especially before summer for HVAC equipment, before it breaks down. That way you have a better chance to pick up a new customer when the competition can’t get to them.

9. Develop a “go now” attitude for replacement sales. Some contractors get the information for a quote and then take it back to the office to put together a proposal. Then “tries” to make an appointment to go back to share the numbers. When a call comes in, get to the home now and put together a proposal on the spot. Make it happen. And while you’re in the neighborhood, don’t fax or email a proposal. This stuff is sold face to face where people like to buy from people they like. 7% of communication is words, 38% is tone of voice, and 55% is body language. So you can gain more customers using good body language face to face.

10. Praise the successes. Publically. Thank the team members who go the extra mile and help a customer in unexpected ways. Correct the mistakes privately. Make sure the team understands you value them.

Although these ideas are simple, they are always good principles for every business and everyone needs a refreshing reminder from time to time.

With failing boilers and an inefficient heating system, historic Zion Episcopal Church in Oconomowoc, Wis., needed guidance and help. New, high efficiency condensing boilers from Weil-McLain provided the answer to solve their heating woes.

Zion Episcopal Church is a Wisconsin landmark founded more than a century and a half ago. In 1846, the Rt. Reverend Jackson Kemper, the first missionary Episcopal Bishop, established the Zion Episcopal community in Oconomowoc. The present day stone church situated on Fowler Lake was built in 1889.

“Our heating system consisted of four nearly 12-year old 199 MBH boilers,” said Linda Georgeson, senior warden with Zion Episcopal Church. “Two of the four boilers were no longer functioning, and we were convinced the other two would fail because one was leaking.

“We were quite distressed to have such failures on this large purchase of units that were considered state-of-the-art when we bought them,” she added.

The boiler manufacturer offered to honor the warranty and install new units, but Zion declined. Instead, Georgeson requested bids from three mechanical contractors, including local Oconomowoc, Wis. firm Schulte Heating. Schulte submitted a bid to install Weil-McLain boilers, while the two other firms proposed installing different manufacturers’ equipment.

“We invested a lot of time researching and evaluating commercial boilers and reviewing the proposals we received,” said Georgeson. “In an open meeting of the church, we charted cross comparisons of all of the different units, the associated costs and warranties, and who would handle installation.”

In the end, Schulte Heating and Weil-McLain came out on top.

“We chose Weil-McLain Evergreen units because we thought the engineering was excellent, and the system design seemed attractive in terms of overcoming our issues,” said Georgeson. “We also liked the warranty, the ability to easily service them and that Schulte Heating was a local firm.”

Rich Schulte, Jr., vice president of Schulte Heating, oversaw the boiler upgrade project.

“Upon our analysis, in addition to having unreliable boilers, the church also had quite a bit more capacity than they needed with the four previous boilers,” said Schulte. “And, the church knew it had to act quickly because they wouldn’t be able to heat the building with only one functioning boiler.”

Installing Evergreen Units

In September 2015, church staff determined it was time to proceed with the project, and the Evergreen units were installed in October.

Schulte Heating replaced the four failing boilers with two Evergreen boilers, a 299 MBH and a 399 MBH; they were installed as a Multiple Boiler System (MBS) using the Modbus Communication feature. In this configuration, a master boiler controls the modulation and sequencing of boilers on the network to achieve the desired system supply temperature.

“With the automatic sequencing feature, the boilers communicate directly with one another so they sequence themselves and rotate as needed,” said Schulte. “Both operate at the lowest rate to optimize efficiencies.”

The new 95% AFUE Evergreen from Weil-McLain offers simple controls, flexible functionality for multiple applications and a durable design, and is easy to install, use and maintain.

The units are adaptable for most heating needs including light commercial or large residential applications and for single or multi-boiler installations. Evergreen offers quiet operation, an aesthetically pleasing design, floor standing or wall mount options and environmental sustainability.

“Evergreen is the only boiler I proposed to Zion because I really like the technology of the fire tube heat exchanger in those boilers,” said Schulte. “In addition, they are easy to set up through the set-up wizard option provided on initial start-up and also easily maintained.

“Another important feature is the units don’t require a separate, external control panel or boiler panel, and that was ideal because the church did not currently have a separate interface to view the status of the systems,” said Schulte. “It’s now very easy to see the system status and service the units, if needed.”

The installation took less than a week.

Boiler Upgrade Benefits

Georgeson is already seeing efficiencies with the new units, though installed for less than a year.

“We’ve noticed a significant savings on our energy bills when comparing this year’s monthly bills to last year,” said Georgeson. “This was not surprising as we expected to experience energy savings based on the high efficiency of these boilers. We imagine we will save hundreds of dollars in the long term.

“The Evergreen boilers also are very reactive to our heating needs,” said Georgeson. “The units keep the baseline water temperature at a level where they can react quickly if additional heating is required, such as when our church doors open on Sunday morning.”

The units are configured to handle the five separate church thermostats/zones. Each thermostat is programmed for usage depending on the day and whether the area is occupied.

“I can control temperatures throughout the church when people need heat or when I can keep it low,” she said. “The units are very responsive for zone use.”

Georgeson also appreciates the easy-to-use interface.

“I can even reboot the boilers myself if needed because the interface is very user-friendly,” said Georgeson.

The two Evergreen units also allow for more space and access in the boiler room.

“It’s not an overcrowded area anymore because we have two appropriately sized boilers handling the heating load of the church instead of four,” said Georgeson.

Schulte Heating will handle annual maintenance to keep the units in top working order.

“Schulte Heating’s workmanship was excellent, and I am very satisfied with the performance of the units,” added Georgeson.

Frank Lloyd Wright is unquestionably one of the greatest architects of all times. Experts have said that he was uniquely endowed with supernatural imagination and vision.

Wright is known for his organic, architectural flair and avant-garde designs that use aesthetic elements, complete with cantilevered floors that defy gravity. Among his most famous designs are Falling Water, the Dwight D. Martin House and the Price Tower.

Wright’s Bachman Wilson House was originally built in 1954 along the Millstone River in the National Historic District of the Borough of Millstone, NJ. It was one of his “Usonian” style homes – a distinctly “American” style house that was available and affordable to all, yet with an open floor plan, integrated with nature.

Wright designed Usonian homes to be built with only four different tradesmen: a plumber, an electrician, a mason and a carpenter. He brought the Bachman Wilson House to life with only cement block, concrete, glass and mahogany.

An architect/designer team – Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino – purchased the house in 1988. They restored it meticulously. The Hillsborough Township, NJ-based Tarantino Architect has led the restoration of numerous other Frank Lloyd Wright houses.

In August of 2011, Hurricane Irene hit the Northeast like a runaway freight train. The Millstone River flooded the Tarantino property, sending six feet of river water through the building, resulting in extensive damage to the home. In order for the Bachman Wilson House to live on as a historic monument, it had to be moved.

The Tarantinos decided that selling the house to an institution willing and able to relocate it was the best option for its preservation. Following several years of research for a potential buyer, they sold the home, (complete with all furnishings and interior fixtures) to Crystal Bridges Museum in 2013, who would turn it into a year-round, historical exhibit.

In April of 2014, Wright’s masterpiece was carefully disassembled, board-by-board. Each section was laboriously inventoried, labeled and wrapped for transit. J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc. charitably donated its services, transporting the house to Arkansas at no cost to Crystal Bridges.

Two giant shipping containers were carefully loaded with the dismantled house. One container made the entire 1,235-mile trek via tractor-trailer (taking over 24 hours), while the other was an intermodal transit, using both rail and road.

The construction team that the museum put together is now in the throes of piecing the house back together on site at Crystal Bridges’ 120-acre property in the Northwestern corner of Arkansas.

Director of Operations, Scott Eccleston, estimated that it would take a year to fully reassemble and finish the house.

The home’s front façade, with concrete block and mahogany trim, has a nearly fortress-like appearance that ensured privacy from the street in its original suburban location. Inside, 14-foot-tall, floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows tower over the open floor plan with red concrete floors, imprinted to show the grid work pattern that Frank Lloyd Wright used to design his homes– another architectural facet Wright loved to incorporate.

Even though Wright designed the home in 1954, it was wildly futuristic at the time. Aside from modern aesthetic characteristics, the Bachman Wilson House is equipped with green building components, such as passive solar through abundant use of natural light, and in-floor hydronic radiant heat.

An exacting rebuild

The museum team is using the same methods Frank Lloyd Wright used in the original design for the reconstruction process – even down to using the same nail and screw holes.

The only exception was not an alteration – it was an addition. A basement area was added to the new design so that a mechanical room could be installed out-of-sight for museumgoers. Metal decking fastened to steel joists was chosen to support the concrete floor.

Wright was one of the very first architects to use hydronic radiant heat as a key to clean, uncluttered design, chiefly because it eliminated visible heating elements such as ducts and a variety of terminal units. And while the original hydronic system used copper piping, the museum knowingly avoided that because of the frailty of copper when embedded in concrete. PEX tubing was chosen to transport heated fluids in the floors.

Using a grid system to build the Bachman Wilson House, Wright cast the grid lines right into the concrete – creating blocks that measure four-foot by four-foot. The grid lines (lettered horizontally and numbered vertically), show where all the homes’ major elements align, so that when it was built (and now being rebuilt) workers knew, for example, that the fireplace would start exactly on grid D13 and end on E13.

“Every element in the home is on the grid or half-grid,” explained Bill Faber, president of Bentonville, AR-based Bill Faber Construction, the general contractor. “Reconstructing a house that’s been built and disassembled once before is like a jigsaw puzzle. We’re using the original boards and material to rebuild it, so everything has to piece together perfectly – including the new concrete floors – down to less than a sixteenth of an inch.”

So that workers could make exact grooves to match the original grid work in the concrete without having to reach too far with the groove-making tool – potentially causing mistakes or damage – the concrete had to be poured in alternating eight-foot wide by 20-foot long strips.

Workers first installed Watts RadiantPEX+ tubing in alternating sections, with terminations in the basement below, leaving other sections untouched so that they could work in the areas without causing damage.

“Another tricky piece to the puzzle was the patio in front, and to the side of the Bachman Wilson House,” said Faber. “Because of year-round visitors from the museum, Crystal Bridges needed to ensure a safe and dry environment in the occasion of snow.”

Snowmelt, too

“The patio was heated with radiant snowmelt. Wright designed the home so that the entire structure – patio and all – would have one big concrete slab foundation,” said Cary Pestel, owner of Tulsa, OK-based Boone & Boone Sales, the manufacturers representative firm for the job.

To accommodate those plans, the 1,400 s.f. patio was included in the sections to be poured. The interior sections of radiant will have a steady 126°F flow of water going through it. The patio is warmed with a 50% glycol/water mix running at a constant 136°F.

“The sectioned radiant installation and concrete pour also ensured that if there was ever damage to one section of the floor throughout the whole rebuilding process, only that section would need to be repaired, instead of having to jackhammer the whole thing and start over again,” explained Pestel.

Ripley’s Believe it or Not Home Decor

The Bachman Wilson House was designed with a second story – which is rare for a Wright home. Adding to the oddity are the home’s original, built-in mahogany beds, which appear to grow out of the mahogany flooring. Conventional forced air heating and cooling is delivered to the two bedrooms and a bathroom up there. The air moves through hidden vents – some visible only by close inspection under abandoned, but still standing radiators (vestiges of the original heating system), or tucked within the bedframes.

A basement mechanical room is now the main area of operations for all things mechanical and hydronic. A modulating 104 to 285 MBH Viessmann Vitodens boiler will provide for all radiant heating and snowmelt.

To conserve space and on-site mechanical fabrication time, Pestel specified the installation of three Watts Radiant Hydronex panels. The preassembled, pre-engineered hydronic control panels include a PM-4-PO primary panel, a DD-2-2 direct panel for distribution to the snow-melted surfaces, and a D-Mix, DM-2-2 for the inside floors.

“We’ll use the tekmar 664 snow-melt control with their outdoor slab sensor to control the snow-melt,” said Pestel. “Also, we’ll use the Tek519 thermostats for the inside zones.  These will be mounted in the basement so they won’t be seen on the walls upstairs.  They weren’t available in Frank Lloyd Wright’s times, so we are hiding them.

“Additionally, we’ll use in-slab sensors for the concrete floors, with wiring that’s run into sleeves that were installed under the slab prior to pouring the floors,” he said.

Humidity challenges

 Arkansas summers can reach highs in excess of 100°F, with sweltering humidity. Winter temperatures can dip into the negatives, all while holding that same humidity level. To reduce the possibility of sweating, thin vents in the concrete floor below the authentic single-pane glass walls and windows will constantly bathe the windows in dry air

“Because this area is so humid, we also installed a whole-house dehumidifier system in the basement,” said Jeff Handley, owner of Seligman, MO-based Handley Heating. “An open plenum return pulls air from several different locations in the house to the basement, where it is dehumidified before being introduced back into the HVAC system.”

Masterpiece restored

“For everyone involved in the process of rebuilding the Bachman Wilson House, it was a job unlike any before it. Disassembly, relocation and reconstruction of a historical masterpiece – saving it from what otherwise would have been its certain demise – was an amazing feat,” said Eccleston.

The Bachman Wilson House is now open to Frank Lloyd Wright devotees and museumgoers. Crystal Bridges Museum draws more than 500,000 visitors a year. People from all over the country schedule trips to Bentonville just to see the house.

by Jay Peters, principal advisor, Codes and Standards International

Everyday across the globe, injuries, deaths and property destruction result from fire related events in structures. Interestingly enough these fires occur even though there were fire safety precautions incorporated into the buildings – from sprinkler systems to firestopping of wall, floor and ceilings penetrations. Just as important to consider is the fact that many of these structural losses, and the associated tragedy, is thwarted every day due to these safety precautions being installed – correctly.

A raging building fire will use any opportunity to circulate deadly gases, toxic smoke, and flames through penetrations into areas that were supposed to be protected – even the smallest opening or seam around a plumbing pipe, conduit or wire can become a direct passage.

Firestopping is a fire defense system that is critical yet often times not given credit for its importance in preventing loss of life by preventing products of combustion from spreading throughout a building. It is not an “active” fire suppression system such as a sprinkler system designed to extinguish a fire once started, but rather a “passive” firestopping system that is intended to contain a fire from spreading flame and smoke.

Just as contractors and installers consider their individual trades (plumbing, HVAC, etc.) to be held sacred, scientific and precise, the act of installing these important life safety products should be considered to be just as important to maintaining the integrity of the structure while reducing risk to occupants and the building. In fact, firestopping crosses all trades and industries on the job site and is as important as any other trade to contributing to the overall durability and reliability of the final structure.

The Basics

 A firestop system consists of materials installed and intended to retain the integrity of fire-resistance rated construction components by maintaining an effective barrier against the spread of flame, smoke and hot gases from breeching the structural member through penetrations or gaps in walls, ceilings and floors caused by other components, such as piping, conduit, cables and wires or building seams.

Just as a trained installer can save a contractor on the job thousands of dollars in the long run, a job that is not manned by a trained installer could cost as much or more in time and money. Many times a special inspector is charged with verifying compliance during and after the installation is complete. A savvy inspector, steeped in the intricacies of firestop materials and penetrations is a caulk-and-walk firestop installer’s worst nightmare. Before grabbing a caulking gun, a tube of red caulk, some mineral wool and heading to the job site to save some money, it is important to understand that it is much more complicated. In fact, there are thousands of different types of systems and installation methods created by many different manufacturers. Typically, there are several diverse and different systems on the same job site and more than a basic understanding is necessary to be a competent installer.

Firestopping materials are specialized systems and consist of materials that differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. Manufacturers such as 3M, Hilti and STI, have diverse and differing product lines made of everything from intumescent and endothermic caulks, to solid strips of materials, variations of cement and putty-like material. They have ratings that are imperative to understand and apply accordingly to the types of penetrations and material penetrating the walls ceilings roofs and floors. The appropriate “F” and “T” ratings should be understood and chosen.

If it is an afterthought, it’s too late

Does it matter what type of building material is penetrating the wall when choosing the firestop system? Of course it does. One firestop material does not fit all applications. A polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) drain, waste, or vent (DWV) piping system needs much more intricate and expensive protection than a cast iron pipe penetrating the same wall, due to the fact that they are combustible materials. A contractor or designer should evaluate the true installed cost to protect each of these different penetrations at the beginning of the project and not treat this as an afterthought. In fact, using the plastic and cast iron example, a contractor may evaluate and find it less expensive on the material cost to use a plastic DWV piping system rather than cast iron piping system, only to discover that it would have been less expensive to have chosen the cast iron plumbing system due to the added expense of the complex firestopping systems required for plastic pipe penetrations.

Firestopping is one of the most misunderstood areas in construction. For example, an installation can be the correct firestop, but the wrong application. It’s important to know the proper system for the right application as there are intricacies that require knowledge and skill in their installation and inspection. Do not make firestop an afterthought. It is not just a tube of red caulk and some rock wool.

Above: No firestopping product has an hour rating on its own. The hour rating is determined by the Listed System and must be installed in accordance with the appropriate listing for the correct application. Remember, while a tube of caulk may say it can provide up to 4 hours of protection that is only true when installed as the appropriate listing states.

Safe installations will contain materials that are tested and listed to meet the industry standards created by standards developers, such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Factory Mutual (FM) and the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). They will be installed by contractors and installers that are trained by leading industry trade associations such as the Firestop Contractors International Association (FCIA) and the end product will be inspected by agencies and inspectors that are accredited by the International Accreditation Service and International Firestop Council (IFC).

When completed correctly, the penetrations should be protected and follow the strict code provisions contained within the building, fire, electrical, plumbing and mechanical codes authored by the International Code Council (ICC), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO).

Below: A simple firestop caulk to protect annular space with cast iron piping.

Below: A firestop device collar as part of a complex firestop system that is required for protection of polyvinyl chloride piping.

More questions than answers?

If you can’t answer these questions then you either need more training or additional help from a certified firestop company.

• Is the Installing contractor licensed?
• Is the contractor’s installer trained and certified?
• Is the right combination of systems installed? In the correct locations?
• Is it certified or listed for the application and type of penetration?
• Has the system been inspected per the building code?
• Is the inspector certified to inspect the intricate systems and identify the proper certifications? Has a log been made of every firestop penetration system?
• Is there a maintenance inspection plan in place?

If you are not trained, licensed, certified or experienced in the intricacies of inspecting or installing complex firestop systems in a structure, it is simple…either get trained, or just don’t take on the risk! More than just saving money, a properly planned, installed and inspected firestop system saves lives.

About the author Jay Peters

For more than 35 years, Peters has been active in the plumbing and mechanical trades as a journeyman, contractor, instructor, and senior staff for ICC and IAPMO. His firm, Codes and Standards International, represents manufacturers and industry stakeholders at technical codes and standards meet- ings, regulatory, and legislative hearings; and navigation of product testing, listing, and certification processes at ICC, IAPMO, NSF, UL and more. He can be reached directly at jay@b uildingc odesAndStandards.com.