Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

26-04-2012 08:46 | 1- 866--372--8114 This homeowner called Dr. Energy Saver a second time after being so pleased with the prior energy saving work, with the task of making the skylight in the kitchen more energy efficient. Skylights are often used to bring additional daylight into rooms and are great looking architectural features, but depending on the way in which they were built and installed, they can become a big source of energy waste. Larry Janesky, owner and president of Dr. Energy Saver, explains the many ways in which energy can be lost through typical skylights that were not built for energy efficiency. First of all, as is the same with windows, proper air sealing is necessary to prevent air leaks. Skylights built with regular single pane glass are also a source of heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer, because heat is easily transferred through the glass. The cold glass pane also causes the so called "convective loop", which accelerates heat loss and makes the home feel very drafty. To help this homeowner, Dr. Energy Saver installed an energy efficient skylight window insert, with double low-e glass panes to stop heat transfer. A layer of argon between the panes helps minimize heat transfer even more. This homeowner can now enjoy the light and beauty of the skylight with none of the energy penalties. Give us a call if you would like us to help make your home energy efficient, or if you would like a comprehensive home energy audit to ...

Go here to read the rest:
Installing a Skylight Window Insert - Video

26-04-2012 14:27 We had Dan's 13th floor window replaced this morning and thought we would share the ride with you.

Excerpt from:
Dan's Window Replacement - Video

26-04-2012 16:49 Hi, my name is Dennis McHugh and I'm an expert at solving problems related to home window repairs, window replacement and glass replacement here in St. Louis, Missouri. I've been at this for about 20 years and people often come by my family's window replacement and window repair companies asking a few basic questions that are pretty easy to deal with. If you're one of those people who is looking for the best windows to reduce your energy bills or just to remove moisture from glass, then you've come to the right place. Due to heavy advertising for window replacement in St. Louis, many people don't know that window repair or glass replacement options even exist. Window and door replacement companies don't like it when I share this kind of information, but I hope it helps you. How do we do it? Whether you need residential window repair or commercial window repair, the process works the same way. With the window repair method, the glass is re-engineered by drilling a small hole into the top corner. A clear micro valve is installed. When heat and pressure build between the window's glass panes, the valve opens and the moisture is expelled until the glass is clear and dry. Before you spend a small fortune on replacement windows or patio doors for your home or office, I encourage you to explore the options related to repairs first. Unfortunately, in the replacement window industry, there are always a few bad apples that cheat people and rip them off. I don't want you to be a ...

More here:
Window Repair or Window Replacement: Remove Moisture - Video

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Window Film Association (IWFA), a non-profit organization, is offering a consumer guide that explains how to gain similar benefits of replacement windows at a fraction of the cost by installing window film on existing residential and commercial windows. Indeed, professionally installed window film can reduce cooling costs by up to 30 percent, while making homes and buildings more comfortable in warmer months.

"In the heat of the summer; electric bills skyrocket as everyone turns on air conditioners just to survive. Shades are drawn to block the solar heat beating in and lights are turned on in place of the natural sunlight," said Darrell Smith, executive director of IWFA. "This pattern during a season of peak energy demand is a fast track to exorbitant energy bills. Window film can eliminate uncomfortable hot spots and block solar heat, while saving significant money," he added.

Window film, which comes in a variety of shades from visually clear to dark, also prevents most harmful UV rays from penetrating into the home and causing harmful exposure to your skin and interior furnishings. Window film installation costs can range from $3 to $11 per square foot, depending on the type of application and the process can be completed in one or two days.

A recent independent analysis found window film to be the most cost-effective energy saving choice for Californians when it was used in retrofit applications on homes and buildings. Window film offered the best means to improve energy performance, surpassing R-38 ceiling insulation on existing California homes with single pane glass, according to the study.

The IWFA's free guide also outlines how window film can bring older windows that are in good condition, up to modern standards. The booklet explains how window film delivers up to seven times the energy savings per dollar spent, as compared to installing replacement windows.

About the International Window Film Association

The International Window Film Association (IWFA) is a unified industry body of window film dealers, distributors, and manufacturers that facilitates the growth of the industry by providing unbiased research, influencing policy and promoting awareness of window film. The organization builds alliances with trade associations, utilities and government agencies to advance dealers' and distributors' businesses and provide value to their customers.

Contact:

Steve Capoccia WARNER COMMUNICATIONS steve@warnerpr.com 617 372 1539

Read this article:
Downsize Your Energy Bills When the Mercury Rises

The Fremont City Council on Tuesday approved a series of change orders for the Christensen Field Event Center remodeling project, but not before grilling the architect about a $5,714 change order for revising electrical service to the kitchen.

A staff report by Parks and Recreation Director John Schmitz encouraged Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture to reimburse the city the change order amount due to their error in the specifications.

The city has a contract with Fauss Construction as the general contractor, but the architect was hired by the Christensen family in connection with a private donation toward the project, city officials explained.

Mike Thompson of Alley Poyner Macchietto admitted the change order was the result of an error on architectural drawings, but disagreed that his firm should be held financially responsible.

The change order refers to some outlets that need to be added that were not included in our drawings, but are required to operate the ovens that are part of the project, Thompson told the council. I do not have an excuse why those outlets were not included, but these are costs that you would have paid regardless because you would have had the cost of an outlet to power your ovens.

Mayor Scott Getzschman and several council members said they were frustrated about paying for a change order to correct something they said should have been included in the original specifications.

I dont know who you hired for the electrical engineer on this project, Getzschman told Thompson, but I will tell you that the bulk of our change orders on this project have been electrical, and its very disturbing to me and to this project and to the city that we have to go through this because, in my opinion, your electrical engineer was asleep at the wheel.

You get paid to do a service, council member Todd Hoppe said to Thompson. That way we know the cost so we have the money to do this. We rely on that information, and when we dont get the proper information from you, you need to open your wallet and give back.

Other change orders, such as replacing the roof and a change in hand dryers, were made at the request of the city and Christensens, and some changes are to be expected when unforeseen problems pop up in a job, Thompson pointed out.

You could not foresee those, Hoppe told him. You could foresee this one though, thats the difference.

See the article here:
Council approves change orders for remodeling project

Facebook jumped on it for $1 billion, so it must be true: Instagram, with its stable of custom filters turning any snapshot into a keepsake-worthy print, is this online-addled generation's manifestation of meaningful. I dig it because it makes me look like I have a small fraction of a skill I don't normally possess, but that's me.

After a few weeks as a member of the now all-inclusive Instagram literati, I've discovered that even though taking pictures of your food is still the fastest way to elicit an eye-roll from most of your social-media followers ("Made this ravioli from scratch! #homemade #culinarygenius"), it's still fun as hell. In this vein, three of New England's most in-demand chefs have turned to the app as the number-one way to share their kitchens with both their peers and their fans. I sat down with each of them to find out why they've begun throwing a filter on every movement in the kitchen.

@MSCELFO: MICHAEL SCELFO

Executive chef, Russell House Tavern

TIME ON INSTAGRAM: 4-5 months

A plate of chef Michael Scelfo's beet carpaccio is sitting in front of me, and resisting the urge to snap a quick, inconspicuous picture while we talk is proving to be very difficult. The neon magenta of the red beet slices is bleeding over to the golden ones, and the effect is vaguely psychedelic.

This urge is something Scelfo doesn't fight, to gorgeous results. As he scrolls through his photos, passing his phone across the table to show me one of his favorites beef-tongue meatballs he flicks through a series of gory prep-driven shots.

"I do tend to take a lot of photos that are really raw photos of breakdowns," he admits, adding that some of his friends requested a warning. Glimpses of butchering an obvious fact of kitchen life appear frequently on chef feeds. The shots are more enlightening than gristly. "I think Instagram softens it up a bit and makes it more palatable."

It's hard to tell if Scelfo is a good photographer or just really good with the app, but his posts are fantastic. He says that the ability to communicate with high-caliber chefs in such a casual way is another one of Instagram's best features.

"It blurs the lines between us, and it gets rid of that level of status between elites and everyday guys like me," he says. "The food world is all just coming together, and it's these tools that are making it happen."

Read the original post:
How local chefs are using Instagram to pretty up and reach out

RALEIGH, NC--(Marketwire -04/26/12)- Highwoods Properties, Inc. (HIW - News) today announced that it has sold Feather Sound II, a 80,445 square foot, Class B office building in Pinellas County for $9.5 million, recording a non-FFO gain of $1.4 million. The property, which is currently 98.8% leased, is projected to generate approximately $900,000 of annual net operating income. The Company used the proceeds from this disposition to pay down its unsecured revolving credit facility.

Ed Fritsch, president and chief executive officer of Highwoods, stated, "We continue to improve the overall quality of our portfolio through the disposition of non-core assets. Feather Sound II, a 26-year-old office building, is located in Pinellas County (across the Bay from Tampa's Westshore submarket), a non-core submarket for our Company."

With the completion of this sale, Highwoods owns 20 office properties, encompassing 2.9 million square feet in Tampa, primarily in the Westshore and I-75 corridor submarkets. At March 31, 2012, these properties were, on average, 90.9% leased.

About Highwoods PropertiesHighwoods Properties, headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, is a publicly traded (HIW - News) real estate investment trust ("REIT") and a member of the S&P MidCap 400 Index. The Company is a fully integrated, self-administered REIT that provides leasing, management, development, construction and other customer-related services for its properties and for third parties. At March 31, 2012, Highwoods owned or had an interest in 338 in-service office, industrial and retail properties encompassing approximately 34.5 million square feet and owned 586 acres of development land. The Company's properties and development land are located in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. For more information about Highwoods Properties, please visit our website at http://www.highwoods.com.

Certain matters discussed in this press release, such as projected net operating income of sold properties, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are distinguished by use of the words "will", "expect", "intend" and words of similar meaning. Although Highwoods believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved.

Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Highwoods' current expectations include, among others, the following: the financial condition of our customers could deteriorate; development activity by our competitors in our existing markets could result in excessive supply of properties relative to customer demand; development, acquisition, reinvestment, disposition or joint venture projects may not be completed as quickly or on as favorable terms as anticipated; we may not be able to lease or re-lease second generation space quickly or on as favorable terms as old leases; our markets may suffer declines in economic growth; we may not be able to lease our newly constructed buildings as quickly or on as favorable terms as originally anticipated; unanticipated increases in interest rates could increase our debt service costs; unanticipated increases in operating expenses could negatively impact our NOI; we may not be able to meet our liquidity requirements or obtain capital on favorable terms to fund our working capital needs and growth initiatives or to repay or refinance outstanding debt upon maturity; the Company could lose key executive officers; and others detailed in the Company's 2011 Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC reports.

Excerpt from:
Highwoods Properties Sells Non-Core Asset in Pinellas County, Florida for $9.5M

by Megan Thornton mthornton@cherokeetribune.com Cherokee Tribune

Vince Merolla addresses the press and public on Thursday about the fire that destroyed his office building on Sixes Road. The building, which housed eight tenants at the time, went up in flames 5 a.m. on March 5. It was one of the biggest commercial fires in the county in years. Cherokee Tribune/Todd Hull

Vince Merolla, president of Vince Merolla Enterprises, said he decided to conduct the event because he wanted to make sure the facts were presented and to let the public know that the ruined building is about to be demolished.

The building at 3440 Sixes Road near BridgeMill, which housed eight tenants at the time, went up in flames March 5 around 5 a.m. It was one of the biggest commercial fires in the county in years.

Since the fire, Cherokee County fire investigators released their findings that the cause of the fire was undetermined.

Due to the inability to completely rule out the possibility of an electrical causation within the area of origin, the cause of the fire is undetermined at this time, a report issued at the end of the investigation stated.

On Thursday, Merolla confirmed the cause of the fire as reported by the Cherokee Tribune.

The cause of the fire was determined to begin in the attic as electrical, Merolla said. However, because the fire was so intense and destroyed so much of the building, the only ruling available to authorities was undetermined.

Merolla told those in attendance Thursday that he has plans to clear the site next week.

Over the next five to seven days, well clear the site all the way down to the dirt and then my staff and I will start to plan out the rebuild of the building, he said, adding he plans to eventually build a replacement but has no time frame for the construction

Visit link:
Building owner addresses fire in news conference

Representatives of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters (NERCC) have been demonstrating in front of the Lexington Town Office Building for weeks. The carpenters group is protesting against CTA Construction, claiming the contractor which submitted bids for two Lexington school projects does not pay fair wages and does poor quality work.

NERCC organizer Steve Falvey said he has been seeking public records for years to compile evidence demonstrating CTAs sub-standard practices.

Members of the Carpenters Local 26 have been informing the public of the possibility that a significant school remodeling project will be awarded to somebody who we believe does not possess the skills or management experience to do the job properly, Falvey said.

He said union members have been traveling throughout the area, carrying a banner that reads: Utter disregard for quality. Falvey said the line is a direct quote from a construction engineer who was dissatisfied with recent work done on the Parker Elementary School in Billerica.

Documents provided to the Lexington Minuteman by the NERCC indicate a level of dissatisfaction with work done by subcontractors hired by CTA for several local projects. For example, a Division of Asset Capital Management (DCAM) rated CTA well below average after a project at Menotomy Manor for the Arlington Housing Authority in 2010. The Arlington Housing Authority could not be reached for comment.

Accoding to CTA spokesman Jason Kauppi, CTAs average rating with DCAM is 94 out of 100, which more accurately reflects the quality of its work and its customer satisfaction than any individual score.

While Falvey insisted NERCC represents all local carpenters in the area regardless of union status, Kauppi dismissed the groups protest as a union issue.

The unions are doing this because CTA is a very successful, open-shop contractor, which means CTA is not bound to only use union contractors, Kauppi said. The unions dont want the competition.

Lexington and CTA

View original post here:
Carpenters group stages protest against construction firm

Design-build commercial modular construction firm Ramtech Building Systems headquartered in Mansfield, Texas has announced that the company has received a 2011 Awards of Distinction honor at the World of Modular, the Modular Building Institute's annual convention and trade show held March 24-27 at the Hilton Bonnet Creek in Orlando, FL. Ramtech extended its string of Awards of Distinction winnings over the last three years by securing a first place award in the 'Temporary Office Under 5000 square feet' category for the 4,320 square foot modular building the company built and installed at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for the Multinational Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program.

Mansfield, Texas (PRWEB) April 24, 2012

Design-build commercial modular construction firm Ramtech Building Systems headquartered in Mansfield, Texas has announced that the company has received a 2011 Awards of Distinction honor at the World of Modular, the Modular Building Institute's annual convention and trade show held March 24-27 at the Hilton Bonnet Creek in Orlando, FL. Ramtech extended its string of Awards of Distinction winnings over the last three years by securing a first place award in the 'Temporary Office Under 5000 square feet' category for the 4,320 square foot modular building the company built and installed at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for the Multinational Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program. Performed under a design-build modular construction contract for El Paso-based CF Jordan Construction with design input from Jacobs Engineering, the facility provides for modular office and engineering space to support the final system integration and flight test activities for the NATO-managed MEADS project, a multinational joint venture comprised of MBDA in Italy, LFK in Germany, and U.S.-based Lockheed Martin. The $4.2 billion program is a ground-based Air and Missile Defense System that will incorporate the hit-to-kill PAC-3 MSE missile in a system that includes 360-degree surveillance and fire control sensors, netted-distributed battle management communication centers, and high-firepower launchers. According to Gary White, Ramtech's vice president of sales and estimating, "This AOD award is a recognition of Ramtech's ability to produce cost effective high-quality traditional modular buildings in addition to our award-winning permanent modular building program.

The facility was installed on a heavily reinforced nine-inch concrete slab foundation designed to withstand any ground movement from testing activity in and around the surrounding area. To help achieve this stability, Ramtech eschewed the basic haydite blocks typically used for most modular building foundations in favor of attaching the structure to 24 x 24 plinths, comprised of steel reinforced fully-mortared block piers connected to the concrete slab with #6 dowels and #3 horizontal ties. Built to meet Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection compliance, the building incorporates vandal resistant security bars over the windows with fragment retention film on the windowpanes. The exterior utilizes a factory applied 26-gauge hi-ribbed R-panel steel siding together with a TPO membrane single-ply roof. The building incorporates five Bard Wall-Mounted HVAC units zoned within the building layout for the heating and cooling of 17 offices, a large conference room, data room, and break room. The interior is finished out with VCG walls and carpet tile flooring in the main areas, and static dissipative vinyl composition tile for the data room.

The MBI Awards of Distinction contest is the commercial modular industry's premier awards program, with competition in over 30 categories for the MBI's member organizations including building manufacturers, dealers, and product and service providers. Finished project entries are accepted for temporary, permanent, and renovated modular buildings, as well as a new green building design category that provides both MBI members and college and university students the opportunity for world-class recognition. Each building entry is judged by an impartial panel of industry and non-industry construction and code experts, architects, and engineers who evaluate the projects for architectural excellence, technical innovation, cost effectiveness, energy efficiency, and calendar days to complete.

About Ramtech Building Systems

Located on 20 acres in the southern part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Ramtech Building Systems has convenient access to the major transportation arteries that serve cities throughout the Southwest. Structured as a vertically integrated design-build construction company, Ramtech provides space planning, design services, manufacturing, site construction and finish-out on every project they produce. The company maintains a consistent workforce of production workers and supervisory personnel with an average of 13 years experience, many with tenures over 20 years. This experience, coupled with Ramtechs approach to modular manufacturing and construction, allows for greater control at each step in the building process resulting in significant time and money savings for their clients. By emphasizing a value engineering approach, Ramtech has successfully completed over 2,500 prefabricated buildings for diverse projects of all sizes. For more information, visit the company's website at http://www.ramtechgroup.com.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prwebmodular_buildings/ramtech_building_systems/prweb9429760.htm

Read more:
Ramtech Wins AOD Award at Modular Building Institute Annual Conference