Relaxing at Home By Sheryl Long It’s a simple fact that people are spending more time at home and there are many reasons why. Some are directly related to a downturn in the economy. Some are simply the results of people realizing the benefits their immediate surroundings can bring to their life. Cocooning and nesting Read more
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Relaxing at Home
By Sheryl Long
It’s a simple fact that people are spending more time at home and there are many reasons why. Some are directly related to a downturn in the economy. Some are simply the results of people realizing the benefits their immediate surroundings can bring to their life. Cocooning and nesting are terms used in the past for this phenomenon. And in 2009, “staycation” actually made it into the Miriam Webster Dictionary. Whatever you name it, the opportunity is there to promote and sell the amenities that enhance this trend, many of which natural gas can provide.
Entertaining at home lets people enjoy the company of friends and family without driving to a destination. It’s easier to mingle and talk when not confined to a restaurant table. Whether it’s a Sunday morning brunch for four or a cookout for 20, cooking at home keeps the cost dining together manageable so folks can do it more often.
Vacations spent at home let families truly enjoy all that their home and surroundings have to offer. Swimming in the pool every day, taking long hot soaks in the tub, reading a book, and visiting the local zoo and art museum are just some of the many available pastimes. Foregoing a pleasure destination can be the result of a shortage of money or a just a desire to make life simpler, but it doesn’t mean giving up a relaxing and fun vacation time.
Whatever the reason, trends of staying put have homeowners expanding their current space and/or updating kitchens, baths and patio areas, turning their homes into refuges where they want to spend more time. They get to immediately enjoy the comforts of these improvements, and if and when they eventually decide to sell their home, their property value has been increased.
Coach your staff on how to sell this idea of at-home comfort, and you can increase your revenue stream. The opportunities are endless.
Bathroom Spas
In any home, a peaceful, serene bathroom can be a haven. A spa-like atmosphere can be accomplished with large tubs with jets and rain showers. Towel warmers, mirror defoggers and underfloor heat all add to a restful, luxurious retreat.
Natural gas adds a major comfort factor in all of these applications. “Having enough hot water to fill an extra large tub or last through a long shower with a sunflower showerhead is a snap with a natural gas tankless water heater” said Larry Jackson, manager of Partner Development for TECO Peoples Gas. “With a tankless unit there will always be enough hot water. Many homeowners don’t realize their standard water heater won’t suffice.” Also, natural gas hydro-heat systems can be piped to provide radiant heating of tile floors, mirror defogging and towel warming, adding even more comforts for the client and more revenue for your business.
Fireplaces
Nothing says cozy and homey more than a fireplace in the fall and winter months. Visions of family and friends gathered before a blazing fireplace in the living or family room conjure up good times and memories. However, fireplaces can lend ambience and warmth to any room of the home. A new trend is adding a fireplace in a master bedroom or master bathroom for the ultimate in luxury.
Nowadays, it’s easier than ever for homeowners to get this cozy addition into their house. Natural gas fireplaces offer downhome comfort all at the touch of a button, plus cleanliness and efficiency as well. Stand alone units range from European modern to traditional in style. The new cyclone flames are a look that can make a showcase of any home. Traditional gas fire logs are also available to make converting an existing wood fireplace a simpler project. Vented and vent-free fireplace and log models are available. Look for these additional fireplace opportunities when making service calls. When you calculate the number feet of pipe needed, plus necessary connections and your markup on the unit and installation, the margin adds up quickly.
Kitchen Improvements
For people who love to cook and entertain, the stove or range is almost always at the heart of their kitchen. Upgrading to a professional grade natural gas range can be a dream come true for a serious cook. Other improvement opportunities include adding a built-in natural gas oven or a special water faucet over the stove for conveniently filling large pasta pots, etc. Kitchen remodel piping and appliance sales can boost your bottom line.
Outdoor Living
Particularly in states like Florida where the weather is agreeable most of the year, entertaining outside continues to grow in popularity. Homeowners are building decks and stone patios with outdoor kitchens complete with large, permanently-installed grills, refrigerators and work areas. They’re installing luxurious outdoor fireplaces or firepits to extend the season and adding ambient outdoor lighting to extend the evening. They’re even installing televisions, stereos and artwork specially made to be weather-proof. And don’t forget hot tubs, spas and swimming pools.
Once again, outdoor living provides many opportunities to install piping, connections and appliances. Natural gas products have many benefits for your customers. Grills and cooktops are clean, dependable and fast and easy to use. Outdoor lighting adds a warm soft glow without attracting insects. Patio heaters, fire pits, spa and pool heaters let homeowners enjoy the outdoors year round.
Consider the opportunity for revenue on a summer kitchen. It can include approximately 50 feet of piping to a grill, the gas connection and 75-100 feet of water pipe to the sink. Add a small tankless water heater that’s easily added in an outside installation. Your mark up on these materials and labor can be substantial.
However your customers decide to relax, natural gas amenities can play a part. Don’t forget about the gas piping, appliance installations and connections that can result.
To view pdf version click hereWhen the new Cape Coral Veterans Administration (VA) Outpatient Clinic opens in spring 2012, military personnel and retirees on the Gulf Coast will be able to utilize a conveniently located, state-of-the-art facility for medical care and other services. As a key player on the con- struction team, B & I Read more
To view pdf version click hereWhen the new Cape Coral Veterans Administration (VA) Outpatient Clinic opens in spring 2012, military personnel and retirees on the Gulf Coast will be able to utilize a conveniently located, state-of-the-art facility for medical care and other services. As a key player on the con- struction team, B & I Contractors, Inc. in Fort Myers can take credit for the project’s complex plumbing and mechanical aspects.
“Everyone from our plumbers, pipefitters, and tin-knockers worked hand in hand with the general contractor and other subs to make this project a success,” said Vincent Cicchesi, supervisor/estimator, plumbing service & special projects, B & I Contractors, in an interview with Florida Plumbing Per- spective. Manhattan Construction (Florida), Inc., formerly Manhattan Kraft Construction in Naples, was the general con- tractor for the $53 million project.
Established in 1960, B & I Contractors specializes in com- mercial, institutional, and industrial construction with services that include HVAC, plumbing, pipefitting, sheet metal, electri- cal, and fire protection service. “This was a very significant project for the Gulf Coast,” said project manager Ashley Fernandez, B.S.M.E. “There were also a number of interest features about the job that point to where the Florida plumb- ing market is heading.”
PROJECT IMPACT
The new Cape Coral VA Outpatient Clinic has been an important stimulus to the southwest Florida economy. At the time of the January 2010 groundbreaking, Fred Pezeshkan, president and CEO of Kraft Construction Company, Inc., said about 600 subcontractors and ven- dors for the construction job will be hired from Lee, Charlotte, and Collier coun- ties. A few months later, Bob Koenig, senior vice president and area manager for Kraft Construction, told the Cape Coral Construction Industry Association that 80% of the suppliers and sub-contractors for the project were procured in Lee, Collier, and Charlotte counties.
The new clinic is designed to replace an older veteran’s clinic in Fort Myers that opened in 1979 and no longer has the capacity to meet the growing population of retired U.S. mili- tary personnel. Although there are an estimated 200,000 vet- erans in the region—including 68,000 in Lee County—the older clinic offers only a limited number of services. As a result, veterans who require advanced procedures have had to travel to St. Petersburg for treatment at the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System.
In a 2010 article in the Cape Coral Breeze, Ralph Santillo, founder of the Invest in America’s Veterans Foundation in Cape Coral, said the new clinic may encourage more veter- ans to relocate to the Fort Myers area, knowing about the convenient services. That benefit, plus a great deal of afford- able housing in the region, may help economic recovery process for Fort Myers and Cape Coral.
“We are talking to vets outside the area to relocate down here because we have the facility coming up, and we have a reasonable housing market right now,” he said. Currently, about 25% of the people living in southwest Florida are veter- ans, according to Santillo.
PROJECT SCOPE
The Cape Coral VA Outpatient Clinic is 224,000 square feet, three times the size of the older Fort Myers VA Clinic. The facility will occupy a 30-acre site, stand 89 feet tall, and include 900 parking spots. The building itself is split into two quadrants: a two-story section and a four-story section. Two thousand tons of steel and 26,000 cubic yards of concrete were being used for the clinic, according to a Kraft Con- struction article.
The facility will be a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary spe- cialty care and outpatient clinic offering services such as pri- mary care, mental health care, diagnostic radiology, labora- tory services, audiology, cardiology with cardiac non-invasive diagnostic services, urology, GI, orthopedics, ophthalmology, dermatology, minor surgery, and advanced imaging including CT, MRI, fluoroscopy, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, mam- mography, and vascular Doppler ultrasound. It will include a Women Veterans Healthcare center, serving female veterans on the Gulf Coast.
Faith Belcher, spokesperson for the Bay Pines VA Health- care System in St. Petersburg, the administrator for local vet- eran care, said in a 2010 article that the design of the facility allows for a tower to be constructed with beds and other in- patient services when the need arises. It may also be able to have an emergency room in the future.
B & I Construction was re- sponsible for the mechanical and plumbing scopes, said Fernandez. “The building in- cludes operating rooms (ORs) with their respective recovery rooms, dental surgery rooms, and many office spaces,” he said, noting there were about 100 bathrooms to be installed. “Months of detailed and ex- tensive overhead coordination between the many trades were a critical part of this project.”
PLUMBING
Cicchesi noted that the plumbing scope includes sanitary, domestic water, condensate, medical gas piping, natural gas, and fuel piping. “For the domestic water system we furnished and installed a 30,000-gallon steel underground tank, a fully redundant booster pump package in a fiberglass exterior dog- house, and all interior equipment and plumbing fixtures,” he said.
Another challenging aspect of the project was plumbing for the operating rooms, which have a full welded stainless steel ductwork system with all stainless accessories, as well as a decontamination room for sanitizing surgical scalpels and other instruments.
Cicchesi said the B & I team had to install oversized sen- sor-operated hand-wash sinks for use by the clinic staff prior to entering the OR areas. “These were wall-mounted units, approximately 4.5 feet wide and 3 feet tall, with their own mix- ing valves,” he added.
There were also four water softeners—handling more than 300 gallons—with a 6-inch flow, added Cicchesi. “We handled all the stainless steel welding, piping, and ductwork, while subbing out the low-voltage electrical work.”
MECHANICAL
For B & I Contractors, the mechanical scope included three 350-ton water-cooled chillers, a 35-ton air-cooled chiller, a 70-ton heat recovery chiller, along with 17 air-handling units and 34 fan-coil units.
The mechanical system included ERVs on all air-handling units to recover the energy from the exhaust air. The main makeup water supply to three cooling towers is the conden- sate from the air conditioning units, which are capable of pro- viding 533 gallons per hour of condensate water at peak load. “This facility is 100% drained,” said Cicchesi. “All condensate lines run to one area and recirculate to the cooling tower.”
The heating hot water system is fed by three 2500-MBH boilers, which provide heat to more than 350 variable air vol- ume units with heating coils to control room temperature. B & I also handled the natural gas connections to the boilers and water heaters. The fuel system included two 25,000-gallon fiberglass fuel tanks, three generator day tanks, and a fuel oil maintenance system.
“The unique mechanical aspect of this project included a fully louvered generator room, which was made up of large, stackable hurricane-rated louvers,” said Fernandez. “The generator room is located on the second floor level, making this a very complex installation.”
MEDICAL GASES
The VA Outpatient Clinic’s medical gas system included all medical gas equipment, alarm panels, and the installation of 35-owner-supplied head wall units. “One of the biggest chal- lenges on the plumbing scope was the large amount of owner-supplied equipment requiring plumbing connections,” Fernandez said. “Close coordination was required with the owner and general contractor in order to correctly complete the required rough-in.”
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