Why do I, after 10+ years, continue to serve on that same committee? I’ve put in my time for the greater good. There’s no pay nor stipend, and we members even buy our own lunch. Why should I continue? Why should the other long-timers on the committee continue?

Yet today’s meeting was the best attended in many, many years.

Is it because our committee is the backbone of SICBA, our builder’s association, and without us the whole shootinmatch might fold?

Not even. The educational events we sponsor and host are generally not door busters. In fact, over the years, we’ve had to cancel a number of them for lack of interest. A strong turnout for us is 8 – 10 attendees. That’s pretty lame for a builders association of 680 member companies. Yet we march on, always striving to improve.

For me, it’s about giving to get. Last year, 2011, was my best ever, which in this economy is saying something. I attribute a small piece of that success to active involvement in the education committee. By active I mean that not only do I actually attend the meetings, I also give seminars. Most are freebie, brown bag lunch affairs lasting 1 – 2 hours. I can put one together pretty quickly using Power Point, so it’s low cost, low time investment.

But the rewards are rich indeed: I get the satisfaction of helping fellow building industry folks; my reputation as an expert in my field is bolstered; and I get my face in front of dozens of people a year, hopefully earning their trust.

Trust. It’s the main ingredient in the hiring stew. It’s the first question you ask your friends about someone.

The people who come to my seminars, if I’ve done a good job, will tell their friends, thus spreading the trust I’ve earned even further. Talk about win-win. And, none of my competition does this – I own the local engineers-doing-seminars market.

But what about Armand? His roots are so deep and his reputation so good, he probably doesn’t need more clients. Armand brought his son, Elboe, to today’s meeting. Elboe is 20-something, and will likely take over Armand’s business someday. Certainly, Elboe could have come to the meeting alone, introduced himself, and enjoyed the status the Hand name has earned in our county. Yet his dad came too and did most of the interacting.

Here’s what I know about kids (anyone less than, say, 35.)

1.  They are not as confident as they want you to believe.

2. They are not as competent as they like to believe.

I make this bold observation based on many case studies, the most notable one being myself. I recall clearly my transition from wannabe-punk to semi-professional-who-might-actually-know-something. By age 25 I had earned two college degrees and was in charge of a small construction and engineering office for the U.S. Indian Health Service in Fresno. I can guarantee you that my clients, the American Indians living on federal trust land in the nearby foothills, could have cared less what my GPA was or how many framed pieces of fancy paper hung on my office wall. And rightly so. I didn’t know jack, and they knew it. It took about five years of flopping about, striving valiantly to appear competent before I actually started to become so. And when that transition took place, I noticed. Suddenly when I said something, people would nod in agreement rather than shoot me sidelong glares. It was such a shocker that I recall the first time it happened – it was in Tuolumne, CA, regarding a proposed community sewage disposal system I was to design. I was 27-years-old. It would be about ten more years before I truly felt like a journeyman engineer.

I won’t mention the names of the other case studies I’m familiar with. But you can take it to the bank when I tell you every one strictly adheres to the two points listed above.

So to answer my initial question as to why Armand bothered to attend, I think it was to nudge his son into the builder’s association, and to introduce him to a few well-established industry people. If Elboe is anything like my own son, without the nudge he would have found 15 excuses for not going.

Do you work with people under 35? If so, you’d do well to offer guidance at every opportunity, even if the fledglings don’t ask. It was Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco, who said, “If you’re not spending 90 percent of your time teaching, you’re not doing your job.”

And I strongly recommend becoming an active committee member at your local builder’s association. It’s an investment that pays dividends on many levels.

If you like this presentation and are interested in more of my writings, please “Like” my Facebook Page.

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It’s positively numbing all that hustling. Driving by a public park, for example, the basketball backboards were ads for cell phones. On the beach, vendors were as common as sand. There were tip-grubbing jugglers performing during red lights in jammed intersections. A guitar man got on our bus, sang two songs, didn’t get tipped, then got back off.  Every flat surface yells at you in neon colors and bold font. Taxi drivers will throw you into a half-nelson to get you in their car. After a while one gets calloused and stops paying attention. It actually becomes anti-marketing.

My family just spent a week in Nuevo Vallarta and we had a bueno time – except for the inescapable, pervasive selling.

There was one instance, however, in which I didn’t mind the hustle – where I was actually eager to pay a generous tip.

We had been told by friends to be sure to do a zip line. So my wife, Cindy, signed us up with Vallarta Adventures for their Outdoor Tour. This consisted of a pontoon boat ride across Banderas Bay; a 4-WD open-sided truck ride up a river canyon on a dirt road; a mule ride to the top of a ridge; multiple zip-lines and rapelling down the river canyon; and truck and boat ride back. (Here are some pix from the Garrison family album: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tim-Garrison-The-Builders-Engineer/283247798367205#!/pages/Tim-Garrison-The-Builders-Engineer/283247798367205)

It was an adventure to be sure with thrills and wows at every stage. But that’s not why I’m writing about it. Like other fun activities in which we partook, we paid a fair price for a product and we got it.

What made this excursion extraordinary were the guides. Our family of four was placed in a group of 14, the capacity of one truck. The guides made a conscious point of keeping family members and those traveling together in the same group. It would have been easy to just herd us like cattle to the trucks, landing where you may, but instead great care was taken to set up compatible groups.

How do you teach flabby tourists to ride a mule and to rappel and to zip line, especially when most have never done those things? And teach it quickly in a 2^nd language (the guides were all Mexican)? And teach it thoroughly enough so that no one gets hurt or killed? Truly each stage involved deadly risk. Then pull it all off flawlessly – converting happy participants into walking billboards for their company?

Here is how they did it:

Step 1: Have enough guides. Our group of 14 had six guides, plus two full-time photographers, plus a cowboy in charge of the mules. And that’s just the folks who took us through the jungle. There was also the boat driver, the truck driver, the guy at the boat landing who set up groups, the ticket takers, cashiers, and untold behind the scenes people.

Step 2: Use experts.  Each guide was in their late-20s to early-30s, was well-trained, and had been doing this gig for several years. “Expert” could be an understatement.

Step 3: Connect. This was probably the main key to my happiness at the end of the day. Each employee was genuinely cheerful and took personal interest in all participants. Between stages they chatted about themselves and asked about us. They eagerly answered my numerous questions concerning the locals, the seasons, the hydrology, the mosquitoes (none), the rainfall, etc. It would have been easy for them to play the familiar “No habla Englese,” card, but instead, using their best-attempt English, they did the opposite.

Step 4: Make clear the expectations. People were told plainly what was expected of them and what they could expect from their adventure. There were no surprises. Paying clients generally do not like surprises.

Step 5: Market appropriately. At the end of the adventure, after they had earned our trust and had provided an A+ service, we were asked to complete a feedback form and to be honest with both positive and negative comments.We were also asked emphatically that if we had a good time to please tell friends. Lastly, we were told that if we appreciated the staff, there was a hardhat into which a tip could be placed. Not only did I partake, I also purchased the CD of photographs of our adventure for $100, and went away feeling that I got a great deal on a life-memory day.

Is your business extraordinary? Tipworthy? Do you do the things that Vallarta Adventures does to ensure customers so thrilled they blog about it? Do you:

* Provide enough manpower, both in the office and the field, to get the job done efficiently and right.

* Use only top-tier people, including consultants, and subs.

* Connect on a human level with everyone who could make a referral. A good rule of thumb is this: Are you someone your counterpart would enjoy having lunch with? I would love to have lunch with any of our Vallarta guides. Can you say that about those in your organization who are in contact with the public?

* Make clear all expectations, both what you will provide and what you expect in return. Are you 100% crystal clear on the big three: work scope, timeframe, and money?

* Market appropriately. After you have provided an A+ service do you invite customers and anyone else on the job to provide feedback? To sing your praises? Are you conspicuous in how best to find you – website, Facebook Page, Yellow Pages, service club, professional organization, etc.? Will you follow up in a month to take care of any niggling issues? Would you be a pest if you did it again at the six-month mark? Remember, word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective kind; and it’s many times easier to land a return client than a new one.

Hustling is marketing and is crucial to any business. The trick is using the right amount and the right timing to build desire. Get it wrong and instead you build revulsion. I can think of a couple radio commercials, for example, that irritate me so much I immediately change the station. Most marketing attempts in Mexico work that way too. There are a few exceptions, however, Vallarta Adventures being one.

Thank you for reading this article. If you enjoyed it please “Like” my Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tim-Garrison-The-Builders-Engineer/283247798367205

Normally I avoid politics like the mall on Black Friday. Mostly because our political machine is so bloated, partisan, and broken it nauseates me. But for some reason I read this article, which I found so inspiring I’m passing along the gist. This is the first time I’ve ever posted something with a political bent and it may be the last.

Here are a few bullets:

* Fortuno was inaugurated 2-weeks before Obama.

* At that time Puerto Rico was in its worst recession since the ‘30s. Its budget deficit was proportionally worse that the US’s. The government could not make payroll, and had to take out a loan for that.

* Fortuno immediately cut his own salary 10% and trimmed his agency heads’ 5%.

* With that credibility he chopped overall government spending 20%.

* He cut corporate taxes, starting modestly, but by 2014 by 25%.

* He cut individual taxes, again starting modestly, but by 50% in six years.

* Here is the one I love the best. Pre-Fortuno, it took 28 permits and endorsements to build anything. You had to visit 20+ different agencies to negotiate the permitting maze. CHOP! Now you go to one agency and get your ONE PERMIT there. Or you can go to PR.gov and get it online.

* He scrapped capital gains and death taxes, and implemented a 5-year property tax holiday.

* Existing home sales are up 35%.

* New home sales have soared 92%.

* Honeywell, Merck, Nordstrom, Pet Smart, PF Chang, Saks Fifth Avenue, Victoria’s Secret are all either building new or expanding there.

* Puerto Rico was ranked 51st in 2009 in deficit-to-revenue. Now it’s ranked 15th.

* S&P actually UPgraded Puerto Rico’s credit rating, while it downgraded the US’s.

I wish to thank the article’s author, Deroy Murdock. Here is the link: http://www.timesherald.com/article/20111120/NEWS/111129970/-1/NEWS

If things like this inspire you, please pass this blog post along to your buddies and congresspersons.

Achieving this is an engineering challenge; it’s not a simple as you might think. I’ll spare you the calcs but will show you how I designed one recently.

Deck Post Connection

There are many ways to do this, of course. This particular design applied to an existing deck that had developed problems over the years and the Owner wanted it fixed right. He had a lot to lose should someone go overboard – it’s about 30 feet to the hillside below.

“Yo, Vinnie, you wanna know what’s in my secret barbeque sauce? Tell you what, I’ll Facebook it tomorrow. Check it out.”

‘Google’ became a verb; why not ‘Facebook’?

Anything that goes from noun to verb, globally, should be paid attention to. If you’re interested in operating a successful business, you’d better know how to Google, and you should also jump on the Facebook bandwagon. Here’s why.

Whether you agree with me that in any business, marketing is half, you have to agree that marketing is crucial. I’ve written about this more than once. Here is my first article on it, published in Nation’s Building News in 2004: http://www.constructioncalc.com/blog/business-savvy/my-favorite-marketing-story/ . The gist is that word-of-mouth marketing is the best kind. Seven years later, that’s still true. What’s different, however, is the method in which word-of-mouth spreads.

In 2004, word-of-mouth was just that: words physically spoken by a real mouth, received by hammer, anvil, and stirrup ears. In 2011, that kind of thing still happens, of course. But nowadays, thanks to the internet, the savvy businessperson can get nearly the same word-of-mouth effect to a much wider audience with less effort.

Being an entrepreneur myself, selling a product to a worldwide market, it makes a lot of sense to get my message out to as large an audience as possible. I was excited when the internet gained popularity because it’s a marketer’s dream: a vehicle to broadcast your message to the entire world – for free! There’s a catch, though. The entire world is absorbed in many, many other things. To grab someone’s attention on the web is hard, indeed. I, like many early dot.comers, thought if I built it, they would come. I’ve since learned differently.

How it really works is, if you build it and it provides something extraordinary, in huge demand, at no cost, they might come. If they do, they might tell their friends, who might tell their friends, and so on. The more amazing your product, the better your chances of converting “mights” to “wills.” The word “viral” meant something entirely different ten years ago than it does today. Today viral is good. Very good.

In my case I believed the cornfield’s message in Field of Dreams, so I built a website. And they didn’t come. I built three more websites and still very few came. I wrote books and taught seminars. I thought that if I could just show people how to use my products, they’d buy. Not so much. I even tried giving away stuff. No soap.

I tried mass email marketing. Hey, it works for spammers, right?  Bad idea. Not only does it not work, it irritates people, a lot. My little experiment in futility cost a sizeable chunk of dough and a load of stress when my website got shut down. I don’t like people hard-selling me, why should anyone else?

My problem is the same as nearly every other entrepreneur’s. My marketing has failed. I used to wonder whether the problem was my product. It’s possible, of course, but the testimonials I’ve received over the years contradict that. I also know of others who have superior products or services and who toil endlessly to make money. It’s marketing, not the product.

So the million-dollar-question remains: How to market effectively on a budget substantially less than GM’s or Coke’s? There are answers in Jay Levinson’s excellent book, “Guerrilla Marketing.” Maybe too many answers. A small business not only has limited cash, it typically also has limited time. Guerrilla marketing takes time. Essentially, if you don’t have the budget to hire marketers, you have to do it yourself. That’s guerrilla. Me? I don’t have that much time.

Like most people, I possess certain expertise that I want to share. What better way to market my products and spread some knowledge than to publish articles. Writing is a beautiful thing. It can be a career propellant, and it’s always there for you, at your leisure. For example, as I write this I’m on a plane to San Jose. I could instead be wasting this time with the in-flight shopping magazine seriously contemplating whether or not I need the latest in nose hair clippers. I’d rather write. Several years ago, I installed a blog on my website and populated it with articles I’d published over the years. That didn’t generate much traffic so I also installed a forum, which, if you’re unfamiliar, is a way for colleagues and customers to ask specific questions that I can answer and that others can chime in on too. But, as usual, the problem lies in getting people there.

With Facebook, everyone is already there. And if they’re not, they will be someday, soon. If Friends like what you’re doing, they will “Like” it and “Share.” Could this be a tool to leverage the internet?

Until recently I haven’t been much of  a Facebooker. I just don’t think people are that interested in me. I try to be humble and not plaster every boring factoid or family picture on a virtual billboard for the world to gawk at. That’s how I think, and more or less how I expect others to think. But not everyone does. There are a few of my Facebook Friends, for example, who see fit to post something about themselves several times a day. Every day. I have other Friends trying to build their business on Facebook, which might be okay, but I don’t give a rip about their products and wish I wasn’t a recipient of their propaganda. Still, however, I want to be their Friend.

What about LinkedIn, MerchantCircle, and the other business networking sites? They’re business-exclusive, right? Maybe so, but one social media site is plenty for me. It comes back to the time thing. And also perhaps some laziness. I just don’t want to go through the gyrations and frustration of learning a bunch of new stuff that may or may not be of benefit, but will for-sure be a time-suck.

I was bumbling around in Facebook the other day and saw a banner ad for the app, BeKnown. I checked it out, spending several hours researching. It looked like a decent solution so I signed up. What I was looking for specifically was a Facebook account for my business, totally separate from my social Facebook account. BeKnown looked like the ticket until I went to post something on my BeKnown wall. Problem: there is no BeKnown wall. I emailed their tech support, which promised an answer within 24 hours. That was many days ago and still I have not heard back. Whoosh – I’m outta there.

They’re pretty sharp down at Facebook HQ and have figured out that I’m not the only businessperson with social media issues. Poking about some more I stumbled on the option to “Create a Page.” After a bit more research I believe it might just be what I’m looking for.

In a nutshell, any entrepreneur with a Facebook account can create a Page that’s all about their business. It could be their band, their book, their deli, their software, their store, whatever. The privacy settings in your regular Facebook account do not apply to the Page, the Page is public. And, you get a separate wall within your Page. Your regular Friends are not automatically Friends of your Page. Page Friends must be invited separately even if they’re already a regular Friend. It’s a cakewalk to import blog articles to your Page, meaning that you need only write and upload an article once. From there it’s a single click to import it to the Page. This article, for example, appears on my Page that way.

I believe that, in general, you reap what you sow; that you get what you pay for. Facebook Pages follow accordingly: Entrepreneurs will only be successful with them if they truly bring the goods… if they provide something extraordinary in huge demand. Fail there and no one will want to be a Friend of your Page. Succeed at that, however, and Facebook provides an awesomely powerful, free platform to build something viral. And, you don’t have to aggravate your social Friends in the process.

If you  want to check out my Page, it’s Tim Garrison, The Builder’s Engineer. Certainly, if you like what you find there, please “Like” and “Share” it. There’s a lot to Facebook and Pages and I’m still learning.  I will continue to post what I discover. Thanks for reading.

Half.  That’s a big number.  

The above explains why so many businesses languish, or worse, fail.  For example, say you are a crackerjack framer and are tired of working for someone else.  So you hang out your shingle and start a company.  It doesn’t matter that you are the best framer in three counties and have all the best tools and employees.  If no one knows about you, you’re going down. 

How best should a construction company spend their marketing dollar?  We all know that marketing comes in many shapes and sizes:  phone book advertising; jobsite placards; sponsor a hole at the fund-raiser golf tourney; newspaper advertising;  radio advertising; etc.  

In my experience, the number one marketing method for construction-related companies is also the least expensive:  Word-of-mouth referral.

Which brings to mind my favorite marketing story.  About ten years ago I happened upon a  magazine article.  Unfortunately I don’t remember the magazine nor the author, but the article’s message is forever riveted in my brain.  Here’s the gist:

A fellow owned a small remodeling company.  He had struggled for years trying to find the right mix of advertising using traditional methods.  Finally one year he got fed up with pouring all that money into advertising, which may or may not have even been working.  He knew, however, with 100% certainty, that most of his customers came to him by way of referrals from other satisfied customers.

And so he had a radical thought:  What if I stop paying for all those advertisements and instead invest that money in follow-up customer service?

His plan was to call every customer a month or so after their job was completed and ask how things were going.  Specifically, were there any problems?  Were they satisfied with the quality of his work?  How well did his personnel treat them? 

This accomplished two things: 

• It gave him feedback on his crew and workmanship.
• It gave him a chance to correct problems. 

If there was a problem, even if it may not have been his, he graciously offered to come back and fix it, free.  This fellow’s business skyrocketed.

Can you imagine?  What if a company did this for you?  And what if they actually did come back and cheerfully fix the problems – free?  If a company ever went that far above and beyond for me, I would go out of my way to tell friends and associates all about it. 

Remember the old saying:  A person rarely talks about a good job, but will complain about a bad job until their dying day.  My dad is a great example of this.  He bought a set of tires from a nationally recognized company in the 1970’s.  One tire blew out in the sidewall.  The company gave him a big run-around and would not make it right.  To this day, my dad has not gone back, and takes great pleasure in telling all his friends about that company’s shoddy products and poor service.

To summarize:  The basic fundamental of all marketing is to have customers seek you out.  This can’t happen unless:

1. They know you exist, and
2. They feel comfortable that you’re trustworthy and competent.

Traditional marketing methods are poor at accomplishing this.  Word of mouth referrals, however, work like magic.

Risk + Talent.

Together these variables are as important as anything else in the equation. But, interestingly, you don’t need large quantities of one or the other to succeed. Certainly it helps, but it’s not mandatory.

Risk.

Most successful people are risk takers. You’ve heard the expression it takes money to make money. In business that’s true. Where does startup capital come from? Since most entrepreneurs don’t begin wealthy it’s usually borrowed.

Capital is needed at every step in the growth process. To go from a startup to a small business takes cash. From small to medium, same thing, magnified. And to get big requires huge capital investment. Generally it takes more money to get to the next level than a company makes in profit. So to get there you borrow. Starry-eyed entrepreneurs often glaze over the fact that borrowed money must be paid back, with interest. What if your profitability falters? Do you have a fallback position? Borrowed money is risky.

An excellent example of someone who probably wouldn’t have made it without taking huge risk is Walt Disney. He started in animation at precisely the right time in the history of film. It was a new industry in the early 1900s and Walt was prescient enough to grasp moving pictures’ mass appeal. He was driven by the belief that animated film would become an art form in its own right, though few in that day agreed. He spent his first 20 years toiling in poverty, producing some of the best animation of the time. The problem was that everything was hand drawn –  hugely labor intensive and expensive. Good animators were a novelty, difficult to come by. And the market for cartoons was small – most theaters showed them as shorts prior to the main feature. Walt lived from paycheck to paycheck, paying off loans to qualify for new ones. When he decided to create Snow White in the ‘30’s he estimated its cost at around $1 million. Banks backed him until expenses approached $3 million. Had it not been for a hungry fledgling bank, Bank of America, willing to loan Walt enough money to finish the project, Snow White would have likely taken Disney down. If Snow White flopped, Walt would have failed under the burden of insurmountable debt. But instead Snow White became an international phenomenon, propelling Disney on to greater things.

What’s your appetite for risk? Are you willing to risk it all – your business, your home, your possessions? If yes, you enhance your chances for success. If no, it’ll be tougher to get there – but not impossible. It just takes longer. Elevating to the next level, not using someone else’s money, requires that you use your own. Meaning: 1) What profits you earn are all folded back into the venture; 2) Those profits do not become extra income for you; 3) Since those profits are likely modest, the amount you fold back will be modest too, which will limit your growth.

Talent.

Let’s say you’re conservative and don’t relish borrowed money and risk. Can you still succeed? Yes, of course. But you’d better be talented. My use of the word talent here is broad. It includes:

* Vision. Can you foresee which ventures have the potential for success? Who will be a good partner or employee? What profession you will still love 30 years from now?

* Memory capacity. Can you remember and recite facts or critical information? Do you learn from history – your own and others’ – so that you don’t repeat mistakes?

* Intelligence. Do you absorb new concepts well? Are you a problem solver? Are you just plain smart?

* Ability to perform. Do you have the physical gifts required of your job? Are you better at it than most? Is the quality of your finished product top tier?

* People skills. How well do you work with others? Can you lead?

* Integrity. Are you absolutely, 100% truthful at all times? Are your actions always honorable?

* Work ethic. Do you work long and hard, or are you lazy?  

Some of the above talents are God-given and others are choices. Successful people exploit their natural talents and strive to continually improve the others.

One thing my talent list doesn’t include is formal education. Many very successful people did not possess college degrees when they made it big: Walt Disney, Milton Hershey, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Les Schwab, Mark Twain, Howard Hughes, the list is long. Education has seemingly little to do with talent, intelligence, or success. And in fact, I believe it can be counter-productive. American colleges are very good at teaching a vocation, preparing one to enter the work force and do a job. But they’re terrible at teaching the principles of  success.

For example, I possess three engineering degrees from three separate colleges. In the nine years it took to earn those, not once did I take a business or marketing class. Nor was I encouraged to do so. Now, many years later as an entrepreneur and businessman, that fact staggers me. We all strive for success: the act of continually bettering our lot in life. That betterment has nothing to do with math or physics but everything to do with economics and business principles. Why is the path to wealth and success such a tightly-kept secret among our colleges and universities? Do they think that a bachelor degree gets you there?  A bachelor degree can get you a job. A job does not equal success.

Steve Martin, the entertainer, provides an excellent example of success via a lot of talent and not so much risk nor a college degree. As a teenager he worked at Disneyland doing magic tricks, balloon animals, and some stand up comedy. He continued with stand up as he attended junior college then pursued a philosophy degree at Long Beach State and UCLA. He never graduated but did incorporate some philosophy principles in his act. He learned to play banjo. Each skill he acquired he used in his stand up routine. After years of grinding it out in small clubs he got a few breaks (read, Luck) to write for and appear on TV shows: Sonny and Cher, Merv Griffin, and ultimately Johnny Carson. He thought he’d finally broken through but after half-dozen appearances on Carson, his career was still flatlined. He became disillusioned with TV and went on the road with his stand up act. Crisscrossing the country, he played at colleges and clubs, making enough money to live but not much more. Even though he had TV exposure, he was not a headliner – his was an opening act for more famous entertainers. He put an arbitrary time limit on himself: either make it big by age 30 or get a real job. He noticed that opening acts got virtually no press, reviews were strictly for headliners. With his self-imposed deadline looming large, and basically broke, he made a critical decision: he would only headline – no more opening acts. This boom-or-bust ultimatum was the pivotal decision that propelled him to stardom. His first headline gig in Florida earned such rave reviews in the Miami Herald that he was able to leverage them to spots in bigger venues, Saturday Night Live, and ultimately to become the biggest standup concert draw in history. Film, plays, albums, and books followed.

For 14 years Steve worked his way up the ladder, never going seriously in debt. If at any time he failed, he would not have been bankrupt, rather, he would probably have finished school and gotten a job. It was talent and persistence, in the end, that won the day.

That was the deal Scott Sedam at TrueNorth Development recently agreed to with a medium-sized, western builder. I was the engineering component of Scott’s Lean Team.

My piece of the job pertained to the structural aspects. My mission:

1) To identify inefficient construction;

2) To estimate its cost;

3) Recommend more efficient, greener methods.

At the end of the day we had to find at least two-thousand, choppable, hard cost dollars or our team’s time and expenses would be donated.

What made this particularly challenging was that we had no previous knowledge of this builder’s homes. What if they were already 100% green and efficient? I like donating to a good cause as much as the next guy, but a private, for-profit corporation?…

Accompanied by the CFO and an owner, we randomly picked one of their 2,000 square foot ramblers in the framing stage. Within five minutes I knew we’d be getting paid. Holy cow, I’ve seen a lot of overbuilding in my day, but this house took the cake. Here are some particulars:

The Engineer.

All of this builder’s homes are engineered by the same company, let’s call them Fort Knox Engineering, Inc. (FKE) Before my field visit I spent a day going through a plan set and was impressed with the level of detail FKE provided – four pages of plans plus four more of standard details. Not much risk that the framers would have to guess or call for clarification (if they actually read all that stuff.) However, I was shocked at the amount of wood and metal FKE called for. Particularly considering that these homes are in moderate seismic and wind regions with no snow load.

The Code.

FKE designed per the 2009 IBC, which is exactly what I would have done. But, if I were the engineer of record, I would have used a different approach for lateral (wind and seismic) design. FKE used only a few interior and exterior shear panels and drug (via drag struts) the rest of the house to them. I prefer using all exterior walls for shear which spreads the load out, minimizing drag struts and holddowns. [Drag struts are straps, blocking, or other horizontally-oriented structural devices that pull and push lateral loads from one part of a building to another.]  If you’re sheathing the exterior with OSB anyway, why not have it do some work? Also, I avoid interior shear walls, mostly because getting lateral loads to them from roof and floor diaphragms can be difficult (read expensive.) Occasionally it does make sense to use an interior shear wall, but when I do, I carefully examine the buildability first.

I noted that FKE assumed a wind exposure “C”, which is for open terrain, and which results in relatively high wind loads. This builder’s homes, though, are always in subdivisions which are exposure “B”, a lesser wind load. So right out of the chute, the homes are overbuilt. I might add, they’re not in hurricane or tornado country either, in fact, the general locale has the lowest wind speed, 85 mph, allowed by code.

Straps and Clips Everywhere.

There were hundreds of these in this house. I think FKE must have stock in Simpson Strongtie Company. Now, mind you, I spec framing clips and the occasional strap too, but having been a framer myself, I know that every single one chews up a framer’s time and has material cost.

As an example, all the bird blocks had at least one clip, some two, connecting to top plates. But there were also hurricane ties on all the truss heels. If you run the calcs you’ll find that the hurricane ties alone keep the roof from sliding off the plate. You don’t need to clip the bird blocks too.

There were also straps and blocking around most of the windows. Here is another example of the engineer’s calculation method costing money. Shear walls can be analyzed several ways per code. FKE uses a method which allows less tall shear panels (a good thing) but with that comes the requirement of additional blocking and strapping around the opening. Sometimes this method makes sense but not here. This house has so much available shear wall that to fortify a bunch of window openings is just plain wasteful. I pity the framer cutting all those blocks and nailing all those lineal feet of strapping.

Wall Studs.

This house has 2×4 studs at 16” OC. Being a rambler (no upper floor loads) in a light wind area, studs could have been spaced at 24” OC. Also, many truss heels have double studs lined up under them which is completely unnecessary. This builder uses double top plates, a good practice I have written about, so lining up studs anywhere is pointless.

King Studs.

I was shocked at how many king studs were doubled. Not trimmers, king studs. The only reason for doubling a king stud is to take big wind load perpendicular to the wall (out-of-plane.) With light wind load and small windows, doubling make no sense.

Trimmers and Support Studs.

There were many instances where headers, beams, and girder trusses were supported by 4, 5, even 6 studs. If you actually calc what’s needed, you’ll find that a single stud works in most cases and a double takes care of the rest.

Cripples.

Doors and windows had cripples at the edges of the opening and at 16” OC. Here is a tremendous waste. Many times, zero cripples are needed. Sometimes only one will suffice. The rest of the time cripples at 24” OC works great.

Double Sills.

Every window had a double 2×4 sill. Why? A single would work perfectly well. I wondered if there would be some fancy wide trim or casing needing a lot of wood behind for attachment? No, not the case. It’s just how their framer does it.

Corners and Intersections.

All of these were old-school, 3-studders. There are greener methods.

Foundation Bump Outs.

There were bump outs for architectural features on the exterior walls. Each bump out is an expensive disruption of concrete forming. Generally, if the feature is non-load-bearing it doesn’t need a footing.

Double Interior Walls.

Certain interior walls were intended to have a wide architectural look, achieved using 2, 2×4 back-to-back walls. What about a single 2×6 wall? Almost as wide and a lot less expensive.

Anchor Bolts.

All anchor bolts were spaced 4-feet or less. That’s too many bolts, particularly for non-shear walls. One wall had them spaced at 3-inches on center. Yes, you read that correctly, 3-inches. I’ve never seen anything like it, just ridiculous. In a seismic event maybe 1/10 of those bolts would actually see any load, and if there were a failure, the OSB would rip apart from the mud sill way, way before those anchor bolts did anything at all.

Oversized Headers.

It was obvious that window and door headers were not calc’d. There were 4x8s where a 2×6 would work. Interior, non-load-bearing headers which could have been a single, flat 2×4 were 4×4 and 4×6. Just gobs of wood doing nothing, utterly wasted, using up space where insulation could go.

Those were just the big ticket items, there were many more ticky-tacks I won’t mention here.

I think you can see that my time was well spent, identifying well over $2,000 in savings. In fact, before I left I put together a quick spreadsheet tallying up $3,700+ worth of inefficiency – nearly double their goal. And my input was just a piece of our team’s overall mission.

Back in the office I created a Power Point presentation showing photos and explaining each issue. Here is the summary slide:

Correcting overbuilding WILL save considerable money without increasing the risk of structural failure, or violating code.

Steps:

1. Use a design team, engineer and architect, absolutely committed to green principles.
2. Revise house plans accordingly.
3. Make sure that concrete, lumber, floor joist packages, and truss packages are bid to 3 bidders each. Sole-sourcing guarantees inefficiency.
4. Train foremen and framers in green framing techniques.
5. Be prepared to save $3,000 – $5,000 per unit on concrete, wood, and steel alone.
6. Enjoy the benefits of a better-insulated home.
7. Optional: Inform plumbers and electricians that there will be a lot less wood in their way.  They’ll be the happiest subs on your jobs.

This was Scott’s 81^st Lean Team gig. I don’t know why I was worried going in – we’ve helped builders from New York to San Francisco and in every case unearthed thousands of dollars per home of pure, unadulterated waste. This client was no different.

So the story has a happy ending. We got soup, and the builder was ecstatic with their opportunity to save money without sacrificing integrity.