Concrete and Cement Market: Good Value & Room to Grow Ahead Seen | CalPortland, CEMEX S.A.B. de C.V., Votorantim Cimentos

March 4, 2021 Uncategorized

£11,000: The average amount spent on a home renovation in the UK

March 3, 2021 Uncategorized

Home renovation is an attractive investment for many. It can add considerably to the value of a given property, often while making it more pleasant to live in. What’s more, the type of renovation can be customised entirely to the needs of the occupier. Renovation can also be inherently rewarding. It’s great to see an old kitchen restored to its full glory, or to see an ailing bathroom be given a modern twist.

How much are we spending?

According to the Houzz & Home UK Report for 2020, the median spend on renovation was £11,000 for 2019. This represented a decline from £18,000 the previous year. This decline was roughly evenly spread across the generations, with baby-boomers and gen-Xers spending around £12,000, and millennials spending around £10,000.

How long does a renovation take?

Construction times varied considerably, between just under two and just over thirteen months. That isn’t taking into account the planning stage, which could be anywhere from five to thirteen months. Of all the rooms in the home, the kitchen tends to take the most time in the planning stages, at around ten months per project. We might attribute this to the natural complexity of all that pipework and appliances, and the kitchen’s relative importance in the home. We all want nice kitchens, and we’re prepared to spend more time designing them before we get them installed.

Basement projects are by far the most time-consuming, often because the room is being repurposed entirely.

Do people stick to their budgets?

In 2019, people were slightly better at sticking to their budgets than they were in 2017. 51% were within 5% of their target price, compared with 48% of their counterparts in 2017. 29% were over budget by less than 25%; 17% went beyond that. Interestingly, just 3% of renovators were under-budget. Some of the more common reasons for going over were: deciding to buy more expensive stuff (44%), that the materials or products cost more than expected (39%), or that the project was more complex than expected (39%).

For these reasons, it’s often worth the up-front cost of surveying and other groundwork, as it’ll help you to understand exactly what problems might be thrown up during a renovation.

Where are people’s priorities?

When it comes to priorities, we see an even split between the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room. The first two sit at 29% each, while the latter two sit at 27% and 26% respectively. The more popular home utility upgrades are heating (41%) and plumbing (37%). As far as exterior features are concerned, skylights are enjoying a bit of a renaissance, with 30% of homeowners having gotten one installed.

Research project to create new materials from recycling’s waste products

March 3, 2021 Uncategorized

Plans for Scotland’s first hazardous soil treatment centre announced

Heriot-Watt University has joined forces with Brewster Bros, a leading recycling business based in Livingston, to create new materials from the residual waste left over during the recycling process.

Recycled clay can account for up to 25% of the output produced when excavation waste is recycled via a washing process. This by-product commonly ends up in landfill.

Now a £250,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) aims to develop Scotland’s circular economy approach further by undertaking significant research and development into creating new sustainable products from waste streams.

The project will also include the creation of a hazardous soil treatment centre, the first of its kind in Scotland.

Professor Gabriela Medero, a geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineer from Heriot-Watt University, will oversee the research.

She explains: “As pressure mounts on global governments to react to the climate crisis, future regulation and legislation in the waste industry must be shaped to facilitate the adoption of a complete circular economy. Net zero targets are ambitious and will only be met through a reduction in the consumption of finite resources and a shift towards the use of sustainable products. Landfill, a symptom of the linear economy, can only be reduced if waste can be more effectively recycled into sustainable and innovative products.

“Recycled clay is an exciting but currently unexplored material which could significantly reduce the waste we send to landfill each year. However, many barriers remain that prevent waste from major industries like construction being better utilised, including a lack of scientific understanding about material composition and the criteria for its use as set out by governing bodies like the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA).

“Through this project, we will rigorously test the properties and behaviour of the recycled clay to prove it meets Building Standards for product specification by performing a life-size case study on its performance attributes.

“Additionally, we will investigate the use of spent oil shale and incinerator bottom ash as secondary aggregates, producing research evidence in the processing and application techniques which we hope will allay any concerns about their future use.”

Spent oil shale has been used as a general fill material in road construction for decades. However, like recycled clay, this abundant material could be utilised for higher value applications.

The use of incinerator bottom ash is currently constrained by regulation. Further research into this material and improvement processes could provide evidence to allow current restrictions to be relaxed. Incinerator bottom ash will become a more prevalent waste product in the coming years as an increasing number of ‘Energy from Waste’ incinerators are used in response to landfill bans.

Family-owned recycling business, Brewster Bros. specialises in completing the circle between Scotland’s growing construction, demolition and excavation waste stream and its increasing demand for construction materials.

Scott Brewster, Managing Director, Brewster Bros. explains: “The more ambitious and innovative we become when creating new products from waste, the more technical knowledge we will require from experts in their field. This Knowledge Transfer Partnership will not only enhance our company’s capabilities and offering, but also provide a vast body of knowledge that will benefit the wider industry as we collectively focus on achieving Net Zero targets.

“A circular business model eases pressure on our country’s remaining landfill capacity and finite mineral resources, while helping our customers to avoid paying landfill tax and the aggregates levy. This will be even more important as businesses focus on a ‘green recovery’ in the post-Covid era.

“By collaborating with Heriot-Watt University, we aim to overcome restrictions on use like waste legislation and obtain end-of-waste approval. However, understanding the true potential of these waste materials is also a key driver. We hope to discover if they can be used for higher-value applications or as raw materials in added value products.”

Brewster Bros’ West Lothian site will host the new hazardous soil treatment centre which will use various remediation techniques to transform hazardous soils into a non-hazardous state so that they can then be recycled and reused, diverting them from landfill.

According to SEPA, during 2019, 1.17 million tonnes of soils were disposed of, totalling 39% of all waste sent to landfill. As landfill bans, higher landfill tax and tighter environmental regulations are imposed, construction contractors will have greater need of such a facility for the safe processing of excavation waste in Scotland.

The Knowledge Transfer Partnership is funded by Innovate UK and will run for two years. The team will include Wini Obande, KTP associate, who will conduct the research and Melis Sutman, academic support and Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University.

The Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme creates a dynamic three-way partnership between a business, a specialist academic team and a talented graduate or post graduate (the Associate). The programme, funded by UKRI through Innovate UK, has been running for over 45 years and during that time has enabled more than 14,000 businesses to drive innovation for positive change. KTN is a delivery partner of the programme, providing expert support to all KTP projects and Associates via its national network of 31 Knowledge Transfer Advisers.

The Hidden Price of Deferred Maintenance and How To Avoid It

March 2, 2021 Uncategorized

As a building manager or facilities professional, you understand the value of maintenance. Maintaining your systems and equipment keeps them functional.

But when should you prioritize maintenance?

It turns out there are a couple of different approaches. You can either plan your maintenance ahead of time or wait for something to break before fixing it, a practice known as deferred maintenance.

Unfortunately, abiding by the rule of “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” can result in equipment failure, safety hazards, and severe long-term costs.

Here, we take a look at the actual price of short-term savings in terms of maintenance.

Why Maintenance Is Crucial

When we use the term maintenance in this guide, we are referring to facility maintenance.

Facility maintenance is the process of increasing a building’s utility by servicing assets such as:

• Machinery
• HVAC systems
• Boiler units
• Interior rooms
• Parking garages

Facility maintenance refers to upkeep done on commercial buildings, including offices, hospitals, and universities. Care done on real estate and residential buildings is known as property maintenance.

Examples of facility maintenance include:

• General building repairs
• Air conditioning maintenance
• Pest control
• Exterior painting

When it comes to facility maintenance, a building manager can take one of two approaches: preventative or deferred.

Preventative Maintenance

Preventative maintenance (PM) involves scheduling routine maintenance work on machines and systems to prevent equipment failure and unexpected downtime.

In other words, preventative maintenance means performing maintenance before equipment problems happen.

Preventative maintenance plans include mandatory equipment tasks and inspections. Minor repairs discovered during a review can be promptly fixed to reduce the workload of regularly scheduled maintenance.

Deferred Maintenance

Deferred maintenance (or reactive maintenance) occurs when scheduled repairs are delayed and added to a backlog of work orders, usually due to current budget constraints or conflicting priorities.

Sometimes referred to as run-to-fail maintenance, deferred maintenance plans usually wait until there is a problem with a piece of equipment or a system before repairing it.

Maintenance is also deferred when there are not enough people to carry out the repairs or if the work would interrupt regular business.

Maintenance tasks for non-critical equipment and systems are often the first to go when managers face budget limitations.

The True Costs of Deferred Maintenance

Deferred maintenance can help project managers balance the budget or adjust their schedule based on available resources.

However, too much focus on short-term savings often leads to much more serious long-term losses.

Let’s take a look at the implications of deferred maintenance for your facilities and your business.

Short-Term Costs to Your Facilities

Facility managers often delay non-critical repairs to reduce immediate maintenance costs. However, deferred maintenance can still result in short-term costs.

When you skip routine maintenance, your equipment loses efficiencies and could even break down, causing unplanned downtime.

The money you “save” by deferring maintenance often pops up somewhere else on your balance sheet.

Image Source

Let’s take a look at short-term efficiency by using an HVAC system as an example. Routinely replacing or adding (retrofitting) AC parts can save you up to 35% in energy costs each year.

Equipment failure and unplanned downtime due to deferred maintenance have more severe consequences. According to Aberdeen‘s research, the average cost of unplanned equipment downtime is a whopping $260,000 per hour.

Unplanned downtime results in loss of revenue and productivity. It also leaves your business liable for detection, containment, and recovery costs.

Long-Term Costs to Your Business

Delaying routine maintenance tasks burdens your business with lower functionality and costly long-term expenses. Decreased efficiency that you saw in the short-term adds up to higher costs over time.

Additionally, deferred maintenance contributes to shorter equipment life cycles and a dangerous compounding effect.

Your physical assets (systems and equipment) have finite life cycles. They endure wear and tear from use over time.

There are four stages in equipment (or asset) life cycles:

• Planning
• Purchasing
• Operating/maintaining
• Disposing

As long as your equipment is functional, it’s useful. However, once repair costs get too high, it’s time to replace your equipment.

Ignoring short-term maintenance can lead to total system failure and more expensive repair costs. With deferred maintenance activities, you’ll end up replacing equipment sooner than you planned.

Over time, these shorter life cycles add up. Instead of paying the lower cost of routine maintenance, you have to invest in new equipment more often.

In addition to shorter asset life cycles, your business will also suffer from the weight of an increasingly large deferred maintenance backlog.

Deferred maintenance compounds at 7% each year. Unfixed repairs create more problems as time goes on, sticking you with more frequent (and expensive) repairs.

More Expensive Emergencies

Deferred maintenance puts you at risk of equipment emergencies. Emergency maintenance is required when system failures create immediate threats for lives, property, or other assets.

Examples of emergency maintenance needs include:

• Fires
• Septic tank backup
• Broken water lines
• HVAC failure in situations with extreme temperatures

Unlike routine maintenance projects, emergency maintenance is a reactive process. Frequently these repairs require stopping normal operations until it’s safe to begin again.

Image Source

Repairs for emergencies can easily cost double (or more) than scheduled maintenance. Unfortunately, given the nature of emergencies, these costs can’t be avoided once a situation arises.

Increased Health Risks

As a facility manager, you’re not the only one who experiences the consequences of deferred maintenance. When you routinely delay routine maintenance tasks, you put your occupants at risk.

Deferred maintenance leads to more frequent emergencies as well as a higher chance of injury and health risks.

Injuries caused by poor maintenance range from slips and falls to amputation and brain trauma.

Ignoring tasks as small as lighting replacement and handrail repairs put your occupants in danger, and leave you liable for expensive legal fees.

Moreover, failure to stick to a regular maintenance schedule can lead to poor air quality, mold, and mildew.

Indoor dampness, which unaddressed leaks or roofing issues can cause, is associated with a 30%-70% increase in the prevalence of health conditions such as asthma, upper respiratory infection, and bronchitis.

As a facilities manager, it’s your responsibility to provide a safe environment for your occupants. Ignoring routine maintenance to save costs creates consequences for anyone in your building.

Regulatory Fines and Penalties

Various industries and governments mandate specific safety standards for buildings detailing issues from equipment safety to building sanitation.

The Workplace Regulations 1992 lists requirements for lighting, indoor temperature, windows, drinking water, and other areas.

You need to check your industry-specific rules to ensure you’re staying compliant with more specific regulations. Failure to meet health and safety requirements can result in hefty regulatory fines or other penalties.

Avoiding the Dangers of Deferred Maintenance

Although deferred maintenance offers short-term flexibility and cost-savings, the long-term consequences are grave.

So, how can you avoid relying on deferred maintenance and save money in the long term?

This is where preventative maintenance comes in.

Creating a Preventative Maintenance Plan

As stated before, preventative (or preventive) maintenance plans use a routine maintenance schedule to predict and prevent catastrophic equipment failure.

A complete preventative maintenance plan includes four primary tasks: inspect, detect, correct, and prevent.

Here’s how each task breaks down.

• Inspect. Routine facility inspections ensure that equipment remains safe to use and is working as the manufacturer intended. In particular, reviews help you reduce workplace injury.
• Detect. During an inspection, you can detect systems and equipment malfunctions. Regular assessment empowers you to detect repairs before they become large or cause total failure.
• Correct. Once an issue is detected, preventative maintenance plans include performing minor repairs promptly.
• Prevent. Taking notes from each routine inspection helps building managers find ways to prevent future repair needs. Preventative measures increase the lifetime efficiency and safety of your assets.

When creating a preventive maintenance plan, familiarize yourself with the owner manuals of all of your equipment and find the recommended maintenance schedule.

Image Source

Most of your assets need to be inspected at regular time intervals. For example, light bulbs should be checked every three months.

For some assets, a usage-based interval is appropriate. However, this is more common for manufacturing equipment or vehicles.

In addition to following manufacturer recommendations, you should include the following in your preventative maintenance schedule:

• Regular cleaning of property and assets
• Lubrication of moving equipment parts
• Replacement of defective parts
• Internal training for relevant employees
• Implementation of energy efficiency measures
• Discussion with equipment operators/employees who work with systems

It may take some planning to put your schedule together, but once completed, it stays consistent.

Benefits of Preventative Maintenance

Preventative maintenance empowers your facilities to run smoothly and safely. Furthermore, it will enable you, as the building manager, to better predict costs associated with repairs and downtime.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of employing a preventative maintenance approach.

• Reduce or eliminate the need for emergency repairs
• Longer useful life of assets
• Increased efficiency of assets
• Smaller repair costs
• Reduce or eliminate unplanned downtime
• More workplace safety and compliance

As you can see, the benefits of preventative maintenance far outweigh the costs of routine inspection and repairs.

As a result, it’s better to have a regular maintenance schedule and avoid expensive and unpredictable emergencies.

Let’s Wrap it Up: Hidden Price of Deferred Maintenance and How To Avoid It

It may seem easier to delay repairs when you have to balance several priorities and stick to a predetermined budget. However, it can be hard to predict when you’ll pay the price of short-term savings, not to mention how much you’ll pay.

Budgeting time and money for routine inspection and preventative maintenance saves your business time, productivity, and money.

Maddy Osman is a Contributor at Hourly. Hourly is a people platform that helps small businesses save time and money by seamlessly connecting the dots between workers’ compensation insurance, time cards and payroll.

How a Mezzanine Floor can Increase your Warehouse Space

March 2, 2021 Uncategorized

Adding a mezzanine floor to your existing warehouse is an excellent, cost-effective and efficient way to add to your space without the inconvenience and high expense of a traditional extension or finding new premises. A warehouse mezzanine has a whole host of benefits, not least allowing for safe and efficient segregation of tasks, specialist storage and racking possibilities, quiet office space and the possibility of avoiding planning permission where applicable. Planning permission applications do have a habit of proving time consuming, so avoiding this hurdle is a major benefit, as is the avoidance of extra business rates, which are not applied to mezzanine floors.

You will find that in choosing a mezzanine floor to solve the space issue in your warehouse you will end up with an incredibly customisable and flexible space that will allow for future changes. Whatever you decide to do with your mezzanine, whether it is creating office space, rest and relaxation areas for staff or dedicated storage space you will be sure to reap the benefits. Allowing for a part of the mezzanine to be used by managers to oversee the running of the daily warehouse operation is a great way to ensure everything is running as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Sometimes by creating this birds-eye view you are able to spot and resolve any inefficiencies in how the ground floor space is being used.

One of the best features of a mezzanine floor is that because it is such a flexible space, there are so many excellent storage solutions tailor made for fitting in mezzanines that no matter what your requirements may be there will be a specialist storage system and dedicated racking that fits the bill. The aim of any warehouse efficiency review should be to improve picking time and keep a good segregation between goods coming in and goods going out. Used wisely, the extra storage space that a mezzanine floor allows for can help with this. You can organise your inventory better and reduce the risks of injuries and accidents caused by over-cluttered warehouse floors.

Mezzanine floors are very robust spaces that are able to take a high weight per square metre, making them suitable for storing items of all shapes and sizes. It is up to each individual warehouse operator to decide how best to use their newfound space and the beauty is there is no right or wrong answer. Every business operates in a unique way and there will always be the odd quirk that dictates how best to take advantage of a mezzanine in each warehouse. The beauty lies in the fact that mezzanine floors allow for great flexibility and easy adaptation should the initial idea need tweaking.

Because a mezzanine floor is so much less expensive than extra real estate, some of the money saved can be used towards ensuring that the space is kitted out with the best and most suitable racking and storage solutions for your business. If you think about it, not making use of what is essentially free air space is quite absurd.

Digital Transformation on the Building and Construction Market – Entry and Expansion Strategies | Nemetschek, Smartx, Leica Geosystems, Asite Solutions

March 2, 2021 Uncategorized

Infrastructure Construction Market Have High Growth But May Foresee Even Higher Value

March 1, 2021 Uncategorized

Tunnel Infrastructure Market May see a Big Move | Major Giants Duro Felguera, COPASA, HATCH

March 1, 2021 Uncategorized

Building Construction Market is Going to Boom | Lennar, Nichiha, Ramboll Group

March 1, 2021 Uncategorized

Property Refurbishment– What Landlords Need to Consider?

February 26, 2021 Uncategorized

Amongst the property market surge in 2020, many landlords or aspiring property moguls took advantage of the Stamp Duty holiday to expand or start their property portfolios. Many would have snapped up fixer-uppers at a steal, which will now need refurbishing.

As many career-hardened landlords will know, property refurbishments can be costly and time consuming. This time and money, especially if you are reliant on generating income from your property, can put landlords off from undertaking vital refurbishment projects until they have the cash.

However, getting your property refurbishments completed before your first tenants move in is extremely important for your business. From driving revenue to lowering insurance premiums, here is why you need to get your refurbishments right from the start.

Why is property refurbishment so important to profitability?

Getting your investment property refurbished to a high standard is important if you plan on running a desirable and profitable property business. If you own a property portfolio, it is essential to your income generation that your properties are refurbished to a high standard.

First, a well-presented property with a good finish and decent insulation, heating and plumbing will attract more tenants. This in turn will enable you to charge a premium for your properties, resulting in higher revenues for your business.

Second, refurbishing properties allows you to address any structural issues with the property before you have tenants living it. Meaning your tenants will be safe and happy, likely staying in their lease for longer.

Third, having well cared for and refurbished properties with save you thousands of pounds in maintenance fees over the years. Dealing with issues in older properties during refurbishment is much more cost-effective in the long run.

Finally, the higher standard your properties are refurbished to, the lower your landlord insurance premiums will be. As well maintained, modern and high-spec properties are unlikely to have major incidents that require insurance. This will help you to save money and hopefully bring those premiums down year after year.

What do landlords need to consider when refurbishing properties?

There are several areas that landlords such consider when refurbishing properties. Considering the entire experience of your tenants and focussing on major structural concerns should be top priorities.

The Essentials

Get the most urgent rooms of a property up to code as quick as possible and to a high specification. This includes bathrooms and kitchens as these will likely be heavily used rooms.

Keep It Simple

Remember that the property is to be rented for profit and is not your home. Many first-time landlords get carried away on the details. Keep it high quality but simple and be dispassionate about your refurbishment.

Fix the Defects

If your property has structural issues or damp problems, fix these as a priority. No shiny new interior can compensate for horrible structural issues, fix these first for maximum profitability.

Remember the Value

Regardless of how much refurbishment you do, their will always be a value ceiling, that is a top market price for your property. Know when to stop spending to save money in the long run.