Contractors should have March 2 marked on their calendars since it’s the deadline for injury and illness reporting with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Known as Form 300A, contractors with more than 20 employees must file the summary with the government or face penalties.

“Stay current with the rules and make sure that you’re tracking the deadlines on osha.gov in terms of electronic record keeping,” urged W&C Legal Insights expert Trent Cotney in this brief “If Walls Could Talk” episode.

Cotney also breaks down the new penalty and fee schedule that OSHA recently adjusted to account for inflation, and some new guidance issued in terms of enforcement.

The ICAA’s Executive Director Michael Kwart joins Walls & Ceilings for this latest installement of “If Walls Could Talk.”

For years now, Kwart has assisted W&C in narrowing down a list of top insulation contractors for this annual feature (February issue). In this podcast, he outlines the attributes of what it means to be among the list of 25 contractors as a premier insulation contractor.

Also, Kwart gives listeners a sneak peek of this year’s annual event.

For more information, visit insulate.org.

HILTI released 30 new products at the World of Concrete trade show last month, and there are even more to come. W&C met with Matt Jackson, Senior Director of Electric Tools and Accessories at HILTI, to discuss the new products.

One product Jackson is especially proud of is the new 22-volt battery, which works with any type of job. “We were able to deliver all the performance that you need on 22 volts,” Jackson said.

HILTI took another step forward into the digital age with the battery. The battery is able to collect data regarding what tool it was used with, what it was used for and more. “Every time the battery is taken off the tool or tools, it will communicate with the charger and it will be sent to the cloud,” Jackson said.

HILTI will be releasing more products in the coming months, including a high-speed charger that can charge batteries in 30 minutes.

In this “If Walls Could Talk” episode, Jill Bloom speaks with Tammy Clark of Tammy K. Clark Companies. She is an occupational and environmental health and safety professional, as well as an industrial hygienist. A big portion of her clients are in the construction industry. In today’s episode, the two speak about ladder safety and what that entails.

What are the most important things that people need to know about ladder safety? These are the top issues Tammy sees:

Improper ladder set up

Not having the side-rails of the ladder extending a minimum of three feet

Improper use of ladders, such as overreaching, using the wrong type of ladder, etc.

It’s worth it for your company to do a proper ladder safety training so employees know how to set up, work safely and more.

In this episode of If Walls Could Talk, Tom Harris reflects on the last year and what it meant for the SFP community.

In the polyurethane foam insulation industry, 2022 saw the impacts of the global pandemic. Everyone was impacted by supply chain issues, material availability issues and labor shortages. The demand remained high for spray foam and high efficiency insulations, but we struggled to deliver.

Perhaps the transition to new, low GWP blowing agents contributed as some spray foam resin manufacturers struggled to develop a marketable formulation—but the COVID combination of raw material delivery issues, supply chain issues and lack of installer labor certainly challenged the industry like we’ve never seen before.

Jill Bloom chats with Trent Cotney of Adams & Reese LLC in this most recent podcast of If Walls Could Talk.

What is the scope with warranties? If your company is giving a workmanship warranty, you want to have a document that states what you are providing and what you are not providing.

One issue that Cotney discusses is if that a company wants to have a warranty that is transferable— whether it’s commercial or residential—do you want to extend that warranty if the owner sells to a new party. Regardless of what you want to do, you need to spell it out clearly in the warranty.

Cotney recommends that at a minimum, you inspect/review the warranty before you extend it to a new party. However, there are some states that mandate different conditions for transferability.

Adams & Reese does a lot of OSHA defense nationally, the most common the most used defense is what is known as unpreventable employee misconduct. As an example, if you’ve trained the employee but they just didn’t do work right that results in some sort of claim, as a result, is the company responsible? Cotney outlines what a company needs to do in defense of these cases. It’s important to have a disciplinary procedure in place that’s consistently applied.

In this last installment on our series on Fraud, Kyle Rea of Adams & Reese reviews a case study of a contractor in Texas. This contractor’s hard drive was hacked and ultimately the company raced to come up with a solution for the ransom the hackers demanded. How did it end? Rea outlines this horrific story in detail and outlines some practical advice for contractors that experience such a situation.

W&C would to thank Kyle for his commitment to this series.

Non-compete clauses are already one of the highest litigated areas in employment law, and it could be getting busier. The Federal Trade Commission is considering a new rule that would ban companies from issuing non-compete agreements with their employees. The impact for business owners could be profound, said W&C Legal Insights Expert Trent Cotney, of Adams and Reese.

“This is good for employees and mobility, but if you’re an employer paying top dollar for a C-level employee with access to a lot of different information, it’s going to be very interesting,” Cotney said.

Social media can be an important tool in a company’s image. Anna Anderson, CEO of Art Unlimited, shares some advice for contractors to incorporate into their LinkedIn activity. Her advice touches on how much to post, what to post and more in her discussion with W&C Publisher Jill Bloom.

Jill Bloom speaks with Trent Cotney of Adams of Reese in this latest podcast of If Walls Could Talk. This time around, the two speak about EIFS and primarily what is going on with the system in New York. The city has banned the use of EIFS, claiming fire concerns.

“It’s interesting that that kind of went into effect in New York City,” said Cotney. “Just surprised that they put a ban on a very well known and effective exterior finishing system.”

Cotney explains that with any application of EIFS, there can be concerns about water intrusion but going back to the fire issue, contractors need to have the appropriate building materials in place to ensure a successful application.

“This is unique because I’ve seen contractors stop using it because of risk of potential liability but rarely have I seen a government entity say they would no longer use a type of system,” Cotney said.

Listen more to Cotney’s breakdown of what he believes is going on.

He also discusses top line sales and collections. The new theory, he says, that is going on with accounts receivable is far segmentation, which looks at taking your best accounts receivable people and having them focus on the “high at-risk” accounts.