Prizio Construction Inc

Bucking a virtual tsunami of negative projections and gloomy articles about the construction industry’s near-term future, Reed Construction Data announced that they expect an upturn in non-commercial construction in the coming year.  They expect retail and hospital construction to lead the way, followed by a more modest uptick in school construction. This is a welcome relief from the deluge of bad news and pessimistic prognostications that have soured the mood of every builder I have talked to this month.  Let us hope and pray that they are right.
Credibility is added to the RCD announcement by some good news on the general economy. The fourth quarter of 2009 saw an astounding annual growth rate of 5.7% according to an Associated Press article. Maybe this will lift some of the expected gloom from next week’s World of Concrete convention.

Dealing with the camber in steel decks that get structural concrete fill is a common problem for us. Concrete Construction magazine looks at this problem and offers a solution in this recent article. In a nutshell, they recommend being very cautious with beam camber, leaning towards under-cambering beams, to insure adequate concrete cover.  Our own experience bears this out.  We are always trying our best to produce level floors to facilitate the installation of walls, doors, and floor covering on the decks we pour.  However, when there is too much camber in the beams, it is extremely difficult to make sure that the floor is level and provide the minimum required concrete.
If priority is given to keeping the floor flat and concrete cover requirements are made secondary, there is a great risk of ending up with a floor that will not meet the fire code. If that happens, additional fireproofing will be required at a considerable expense. On the other hand, if minimum cover takes precedence and levelness is compromised, the trades that follow us will have trouble and look to us to correct the out of level condition.  As always, structural integrity and constructability must both be carefully considered for the project to be a success.

This is the best article I’ve seen so far regarding the outlook for 2010 and beyond for our industry. The author is Edward Sullivan, the chief economist for the Portland Cement Association. He is looking for an upturn starting mid-year in 2010, but even by the end of 2012 he does not see construction activity matching what we saw at the end of 2007. It sounds like it is going to be a long, tough road ahead for the construction industry.

In the early 1990s we went through about a five year recession in construction that wiped out about two thirds of the contractors in our area (southern California). Let’s hope we will not be hit quite so hard this time.

Dealing with the camber in steel decks that get structural concrete fill is a common problem for us. Concrete Construction magazine looks at this problem and offers a solution in this recent article. In a nutshell, they recommend under-cambering beams to insure adequate concrete cover.  Our own experience bears this out.  We are always trying our best to produce a level floor to facilitate the installation of walls, doors, and floor covering on the decks we pour.  However, when there is too much camber in the beams, it is extremely difficult to make sure that the floor is level and provide the minimum required concrete.

If priority is given to keeping the floor flat and concrete cover requirements are made secondary, there is a great risk of ending up with a floor that will not meet the fire code. If that happens, additional fireproofing will be required at a considerable expense. On the other hand, if minimum cover takes precedence and levelness is compromised, the trades that follow us will have trouble and look to us to correct the out of level condition.

This is the best article I’ve seen so far regarding the outlook for 2010 and beyond for our industry. The author is Edward Sullivan, the chief economist for the Portland Cement Association. He is looking for an upturn starting mid-year in 2010, but even by the end of 2012 he does not see construction activity matching what we saw at the end of 2007. It sounds like it is going to be a long, tough road ahead for the construction industry.

In the early 1990s we went through about a five year recession in construction that wiped out about two thirds of the contractors in our area (southern California). Let’s hope we will not be hit quite so hard this time.

Last week a number of sources reported that the construction outlook for 2010 is rather bleak, and further that 9 out of 10 contractors think that this year will be a rough year for them. Coming on the heels of last week’s bad news, the AGC today said in a press release that every state in the country plus the District of Columbia lost construction jobs in 2009.  This was no surprise to anyone in the industry, but it certainly adds to the general feeling of doom and gloom that is the leading topic of conversation whenever construction people get together these days.

The only thin sliver of solace that we can take from all of this is that in financial markets, whenever everyone agrees about something, they are usually wrong.  We hope that this is the case this time, because we would all very much like to be wrong.

In 1956 we built our first tilt-up building for a Santa Ana, CA developer named Harry Martin. Prior to that we had been building houses and doing framing work for other builders, but Harry wanted to try out this new method of construction and talked us into working with him. The building in this photo is a recent shot of that very same building that still stands and functions well at 3113 South Halladay in Santa Ana, CA.

Now this is not the first tilt-up building built in southern California.  I am not even sure if it is the first one built in Orange County, but is among the early examples that started springing up in the 1950s, and stands as a testament to the durability of the method of construction that has come to dominate industrial and commercial construction in California and in many places across the country.

Since that humble beginning in 1956 many contractors have tried their hand at tilt-up, and many of them have come and gone.  The question we ask is, can anyone make the claim of having been actively engaged in tilt-up construction for more years that we have?

Blogs to the left of us, blogs to the right of us, everywhere we look are blogs, but strangely not too many of them have anything to do with concrete.  We here at Prizio Construction are going to do something about that.  Drawing on our years of experience and network of friends and associates, we (mostly me, Dave Prizio) will do our best to post regularly on topics related to the concrete construction industry – nationally, locally, and within our own company.

There will be an opportunity to comment on our posts, and we encourage your participation in and constructive criticism of our efforts.   We only ask that a minimum level of civility be maintained in any comments posted on our blog.

Besides comments related to our posts, we encourage questions on any matter related to concrete or the construction business in general.  If we can answer your question ourselves or find an answer for you, we will be glad to do so. Please direct your questions to info@prizio.com.