Elite Crete Announces June Training Dates

Elite Crete Los Angeles announced their June training schedule; click the headline to go download their brochure/registration form.
Two day intensive training plus an optional job day in the field at a private residence.
Free to attend plus they'll give ya lunch...register today to expand your business opportunities!

Bill Leys' Seminar Attracts Thousands to JLC Live Show!

Mobs where waiting at the door at 4:15 pm, eagerly waiting for the doors to open to the Art of Waterproofing Decks seminar, presented by deck expert Bill Leys...the Long Beach police had to be called in to restore order after the PowerPoint handouts ran out...
well the reality was they had to promise not to break into a keg and hold it back for all the folks who came to the 4:30 seminars, instead of going to the free happy hour that began at 5 pm.

I was pleased to see about 25 persons in the audience when I started up my seminar, including representatives from Mer-Kote-Parex LaHabra. The audience seemed engaged and asked me lots of questions, obviously because they had problems in the past.

I wound up around 530, with time for questions and answers...one guy who was from Nor Cal came up and said he was a deck coating installer, thought I did a pretty good job instilling the process of what deck coating installers need from their contractors.

My best feather that went in my cap so to speak though was editor Dave Frane of JLC Magazine who emailed me saying my presentation was interesting and most importantly, not boring, quite a feat for such a boring subject... ;) and then invited me to write an article on deck coating!
So look for an article sometime down the road, not sure what the magazine's turnaround is from receipt of article til publication, but I will be doing an article! Thanks JLC!

Reporting On JLC Live Residential Construction Show at Long Beach

The just ended JLC Live Residential Construction Show in Long Beach seemed to be well attended by my estimation on Thursday, May 15th, the day I attended the show.
Getting in early to check in as a speaker, I wandered down stairs in the seminar area, where the office of JLC staff is and where the speakers lounge is too.

I met Sherri Daniels, a dynamo who was making decisions and introducing me to staff and telling me about my seminar and room assignment all at once and never seemed out of sorts the whole time. "Just another day" Sherri deadpanned.

Leaving me off, I met up with Dave Frane, a senior editor at JLC magazine. We struck up a conversation on waterproofing and enjoyed some banter before heading up to the show floor.

Tons of peole milled about on the floor, a mix of trade show booths with live demo's of installations of windows, tiling, stair building and vendors selling tools and various software-estimating stuff mostly.

Wandering the floor, I met a number of vendors/manufacturer's with interesting products and ideas..including Landon Innovations of Moorpark CA's "Gorilla Gripper", (www.gorillagripper.com )a handy tool that allows one with ease to handle sheets of plywood and drywall materials with an ingenious handle that grips the piece. Simple Man Products booth had some ingenious "why didn't I think of that" products that makes life easier on many construction tasks; an electric box finder that one slips into the elec boxes, then puts up the drywall and you can easily find your placing to cut out the hole for the box. Check out their line of stuff at
www.simplemanproducts.com

Shower and bath waterproofing products were represented well, the market for easy to install and waterproof tile showers and baths is ripe for change, leaks in these areas contribute to a lot of construction defect issues like decks do. Nobel Company amongst others has a line of foam cast tile ready forms and pre-sloped floors along with their all in one waterproofing sheet membrane for tiling, which also integrates a crack isolation membrane in it as well. They claim it will work with exterior tiled balconies too. I'll have to do some research...the material looks interesting.

Wandering further on the show floor, I came across the only actual deck coating manufacturer to smartly buy a booth and meet 100's if not thousands of potential customers who may need deck coating on one of their projects (pretty dang likely they will!)and now are on Westcoat Specialty Coatings mailing and contact list. I met Curtis at the booth who had some of Westcoat's cool water based stains and other flooring finishes, along with their deck coating lines and waterproofing.

I watched Michael Byrne do a live tiling demonstration for a while, then went in search of lunch at the speakers lounge.

Down at the speakers area, I met a local from Atascadero-Turko Semmes, of Semmes & Co Builders, who was giving a talk on green building. Then as I'm sitting across from a guy, Tim Faller, who sports a JLC Live badge that says "Westerly, RI" as his hometown...I find out that a couple of Rhode Islanders are out here for the show -stair guru Mike Kennedy is giving demo's on the floor. Being from RI, it was funny to hear the other speakers, many of whom are on their 3rd or 4th show, ribbing us on "are akshents". (our accents)It was nice to see that an accent on bringing in California based speakers was made with great success. I joined an esteemed group of caring craftsmen, including Dennis Allen of Allen Associates in Santa Barbara, Michael Byrne of Los Olivios, Jay Elbettar of Newport Beach, Gary Katz, Reva Kussmaul, Michael McCutcheon of Berkeley, Turko Semmes of Atascadero and Bill Robinson of Arroyo Grande.

I walked around the show again before heading over to my hotel, the Queen Mary, for a quick refresh before my seminar at 430.

Free Download of ICC Residential Inspectors Guide Based on 2006 IRC

Yep, you read it right, a free download of the 189 page Residential Inspectors Guide based on the 2006 International Residential Code is available by clicking the headline to go to the ICC website.
I downloaded mine today, get one before the offer is gone!

Whew, All Posts are now Labeled!

As a newbie to blogging, I never labeled a lot of my posts. Well I went back through and have labeled nearly every post with a key word or two to help you find subject matter of interest.
For instance, any articles I've read and recommend will now be labeled "Recommended Reading" and may be labeled under "education" as well. Specific manufacturer's are all keyworded and as you'll see in the labels column, there's many a key word to search with.
Happy reading

Gotta watch the Gutter Guy

So after seeing my third job damaged by gutter installers who hacked up our flashing, cracked our deck coating and caused the owners to get hit with a change order to repair our work, it's time to send out a caution to everyone to watch out for the gutter guy...
First job it happened on was in Marina Del Rey, our copper flashings and deckc oatings were done, everything is nice and then I get a phone call that the new deck is cracked at multiple places...a ride on over, climb the 60' ladder to the roof top decks and we find the gutters have been forced into position, causing damage.
Our extra work order at this job cost the gutter guy a charge back of $9,800.00 against his bill. More than all his work combined...
A job we are doing in San Luis Obispo just cost the gutter guy $1,100 for us to remove and replace 40 feet of flashing.

Luckily in these 3 cases I caught the problem in time, before it became a leak and a court case. I wonder how many more are out there?