The Hammer

Jared Kress of Metropolitan Floors and Chris Maskell of the National Floor Covering Association of Canada join The Hammer to set us straight on the impact insulation class (IIC) for flooring. This is the number that tells us how much a flooring product prevents sound transmission to the space below from footsteps. Some condo boards and architects are specifying crazy numbers for these ratings, but what you get in a lab is often not what you get in the field. Kress and Maskell take us through how the rating is calculated, what impacts the actual performance in your project and what you need to tell clients who think your floor can be made absolutely silent.

Steve Johnston of Omnigence, a private equity firm investing in the construction sector, has a stark warning. He sees a real risk of long-term stagflation (inflation coupled with low productivity and high unemployment) in our present conditions and government policies. His white paper lays out the broad details, but he joins The Hammer to talk about the specific effects in Canada’s homebuilding sector and what will be needed to avoid them.

Movember is back with an added focus. The popular fundraising drive for men’s health has added support for mental health to its efforts along with prostate and testicular cancer. Mitch Hermansen joined Annex Business Media publisher/editor, Patrick Flannery, to talk about why these issues are important and what we in the construction community can do to help the guys who work for us.

When you’re done, check out Movember’s hilarious video Shit Mos Save Lives!

We had a great conversation with Damon Gray, owner of B.C.’s NZ Builders, about their innovative insulated concrete panels and some of the great things they can achieve with them. NZ is making high-performance homes, even Passive House homes, on Vancouver Island out of concrete and finding the material generates a more comfortable and healthy environment for their customers.

Espisito and Koblik, the husband and wife owners of Otis Interiors in Guelph, Ont., have discovered a better way of doing business. They leverage their creative and operational expertise with a careful design plan including intensive homeowner consultation, milestones, acquisition of all permits and drawings and a payment and procurement schedule to achieve a high level of preparation before anyone swings a hammer. The process could take as long as a year, but the result is happier clients, a smoother and more profitable process for the organization and higher quality results. Listen to them talk about their professional approach and how others might join the party.

New standards for energy efficiency and low carbon impact in construction are demanding new skills in the trades – skills your young workers might be more familiar with than you are. Chad Flinn, associate vice-president of academics at Red Deer Polytechnic, and Judi Varga-Toth, manager of the ImpAct-Climate program at Colleges and Institutes Canada, are working to educate today’s construction industry in how to design and install the elements of net zero homes, including the unique considerations for heat pumps, solar panels, EV chargers, continuous insulation and high-performance fenestration. Learning needs to be ongoing in this time of rapid change, and Flinn and Varga-Toth share insights and free online resources in this episode of The Hammer.

Ceiling systems have come a long way from basic white grids and tiles. No longer flat and forgettable, modern ceiling designs enhance aesthetics and can impact health and safety concerns. These days, many integrated ceiling solutions are also manufactured with sustainable and recyclable materials. 

Listen to our conversation with Jamie Wright - Product Specialist in Ceiling Systems at Kenroc Building Materials. His career spans 20  years in the building construction industry and he prides himself in providing innovative solutions for his customers.

He joins The Hammer to share his knowledge of ceiling systems. Bottom line – things are looking up with Kenroc and CertainTeed products!

For more information, visit https://kenroc.com/products/ceiling-systems

Dave Henderson, senior technical services manager for the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, is concerned about the increasing complexity of building codes. He goes over at least six major changes that are proposed for the 2025 National Building Code update, each of which will add significant costs to new homes and renovations requiring permits. He reflects on his time working on code development in Ontario and how far we have come from the 10 principles of code development they observed then. Codes used to be about ensuring minimum, enforceable standards for safety…today, it looks like they are being used as a vehicle to push various government policy agenda.

We continue our series on updates to the National Building Code with Troy Ferreira, technical director for the Canadian Roofing Contractors Association. Ferreira has been involved with commenting and proposing revisions for the 2020 NBC, which has just come into effect nationally but is still being revised. We touch on new language affecting fire protection for spray foam, open cell spray foam requirements, asphalt core boards, snow loads, air tightness, energy efficiency and other topics.

Leor Marguiles is a partner at commercial real estate firm, Robins Appleby. From there, he watches as larger developers deal with the fallout from high interest rates and skyrocketing home prices: homeowners delaying or cancelling purchases they suddenly find unaffordable. He joins The Hammer to discuss the factors driving a spike in project delays and defaults and suggest ways that small contractors can deal with the uncertain conditions. Bottom line: stay out of court.