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CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

September 11, 2008

Wood Frame Live-Work Building Collapses in VA
Filed under: safety — Tags: — nedpelger

A Construction Worker was killed as the roof trusses crashed to the concrete slab on a 2 story wood frame building being constructed near Richmond, VA. The Live-Work project had retail space proposed for the lower floor with residential space above.   An article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch includes the photo below.

There is also a slide show of photos that show much more detail of the collapse.

It appears the roof trusses stayed largely intact as they dropped through the collapsed first floor structure.

Why should a Construction Supervisor care about some building falling down in VA? A few reasons come to mind.

  1. We work in a dangerous business. We need to keep that in mind every single day on the jobsite.
  2. We need to learn how structures work (and fail) and always be looking for potential problems.
  3. We must see ourselves as the last line of defense for jobsite safety, the one person who is on the job and looking at everything with experience and concern.

I know the contract might not require you to do that. Many Construction Supervisors see safety as a game to play with OSHA. That’s the wrong attitude (and I understand OSHA often has the wrong attitude as well). Seeing safety involves protecting your team from harm. You want to be the kind of person who does that, don’t you?

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

September 10, 2008

Only 7 More Days to Enter the Contest
Filed under: Construction Superintendents — Tags: — nedpelger

I’m amazed at how few people have entered the contest by posting an entry on the ConstructionKnowledge.net Discussion Forum. Since I’m giving five $100 prizes, I thought lots of people would throw in an entry. In fact, I barely have five people entered thus far.

I understand it’s a busy time. I’m swamped these days, between banks wanting more information, inspectors going nutty on accessibility issues and just keeping up with shop drawings, job metings and estimates. I enjoy the work, but understand how overwhelming it gets sometimes.

The triathlon this past Saturday gave me some perspective. Hurricane Hanna decided to visit PA that day, so rain was a given. Then I woke up with a migrane headache, not a real bad one, but bad enough. Between the headache and a pulled calf muscle from two weeks ago, my time wasn’t stellar, but I got it done. And it felt great to be done!

Often I decide what to do in my life by how good it feels when I stop. Perhaps I should rethink that strategy? Oh well, it’s gotten me this far…however far that is and will probably continue to carry me along.

So make yourself uncomfortable and post an entry in  ConstructionKnowledge.net Discussion Forum. You’ll be glad you did.

My goal for the discussion forum, by the way, is to have a place that Construction Supervisors from all over the world can ask and answer questions, post and read funny stories and just generally connect about this amazing business in which we all participate. It’s a new idea and will take some time

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

September 9, 2008

Building Your Own Furniture
Filed under: Design — Tags: — nedpelger

Most Construction Supervisors can build just about anything if given the time and materials. The accompanying photos show some cool, inexpensive furniture built for a simple house. I found the story of the house at the Desire to Inspire blog. The photos were originally posted in a great design site called Dwell.

So have you built some creative furniture for your house? I know some of you have, because I’ve seen it. Others fall into the “Cobbler’s kids have holes in their shoes” category and just don’t feel like doing at home similar stuff that you do at work. If you like to build things at home, but lack the creativity, check out the sites I hyperlinked to above. You might be inspired.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

September 8, 2008

Safety Means Thinking Through Each Step
Filed under: safety — Tags: — nedpelger

I just read a funny story in the Discussion Forum that made me laugh out loud. MetalMike posted it. It’s short, so I’ll reprint it here.

The superintendent on the job I’m currently at had a little run in with the GC’s Safety man. The safety guy will be called Mike for the story.

Super: “Hey Mike, I’m bringing a new guy to come out and help with things around here”
Mike: (Knowing that there were a lot of cleaning issues…) “Great! When does he start?”
Super: “Oh, he will be here Monday and will only be here for a week, then I’m getting rid of him.”
Mike: (puzzled) “Oh yeah? Why’s that? What will he be doing cause yall got a lot of cleaning problems”
Super: “I don’t give a damn what he does Monday through Thursday but on Friday I’m going to have him kick your ass.”
Mike: (shocked and worried, Mike didn’t say anything and just walked back to his trailer)

So that’s one way to deal with safety. Though it’s like watching The Sopranos and deciding that’s the way you’re now going to do business. Tempting sometimes, but not sustainable.

The video below shows another take on safety that I think will interest you, even though it’s a task none of us are likely to do.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tzga6qAaBA]

If you have trouble viewing the video, you can copy and paste this URL into your browser:

The take away I get from that video is the importance of thinking through each step. So many construction accidents happen because guys are rambuntious. Moving without thinking and just plain acting stupid. We’ve all been there, of course, but our goal should be to move our jobsites from that “I can’t be bothered to consider safety” attitude to a thoughtful approach that thinks through each step of the task.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

September 4, 2008

Simple is Better
Filed under: Ned Weirdness — Tags: — nedpelger

Listen to this 911 call and see if you agree with me that it sounds like a construction worker making the call.

911.wmv

Now I’m a big fan of Simple is Better for most construction site decisions, but I’m not sure I’d agree with that one.

Hope your day is going better than his. For some more laughs, check out the Construction Knowledge Discussion Forum. Read a few posts and put up some of your own.

Thanks to Jim Stuckey from LCBC Church for sending me the 911 call listed above. Jim and I make a good team working together on the church addition project. If you have any news or forwards that you think would amuse others that read this site, please send them to me.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

September 1, 2008

What's Mine is Urine
Filed under: Ned Weirdness — Tags: — nedpelger

My nephew John works as a leadman, and sometimes foreman, for a paving company. He loves practical jokes (must be genetic) and played a real doozy this past week. A buddy of his was real worried one day because his back hurt the previous night and he’d taken a painkiller from his Mom. He worried that the random drug test van might pull up and then he’d test positive for a drug with no prescription.

John saw the opportunity and pounced on it. He mentioned that someone called from the office and warned that the drug testing van, in fact, was on the way to their jobsite. The worried guy freaked, debating if he should hide on the jobsite or just go home. They convinced him these options weren’t practical.

John had a better idea. He’d heard of a guy who had a bag of clean urine taped to his thigh, so when he went in to give the sample, he could tap from that bag. Being a good friend, John then offered to provide such a bag of urine. When John handed the worried guy the quite full bag of urine, he warned him that he had to keep all of it taped to his thigh, because the testers also checked the temperature of the sample and having this much would keep the temperature up.

They then gave him a roll of Duct tape and sent him into the portable toilet. Since the worried guy is also a real hairy guy, the thought of all that Duct tape on his thighs made it even funnier (kindness isn’t the first attribute that springs to mind on most construction sites). Now word had spread around the site, so lots of people were chucking and waiting for the worried guy to come out of the toilet, walking a little funny, with a bulge in his pants.

He came out walking normally, but a closer look showed wetness all down his pant legs. Seems the pee bag broke as he was taping it on. Isn’t it wonderful to have good friends?

If you have any stories that might make me laugh (like the one above did) please post them in the Construction Knowledge Discussion Forum and try to win some of the prize money discussed below.

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