Pressures Of Building Track Homes

By Greg Vanden Berge 3/16/2008
The house you live in was probably a mass produced home built as part of a housing track. The track home is a rapidly built house in phases. These phases if possible will over lap the other home building trades. If possible you will have the plumbers working on the same house as the electricians and the framers. This is called fast tracking.


Fast tracking a house is building a home as fast as humanly possible. So you can imagine the pressures put on all of the people involved in building a track home.
The pace is so fast sometimes that I have seen job superintendents and foremen look like they were actually going to blow up. I mean explode from the pressure they where under.


Framing the stairs on the job was the same experience for me most of the time. Sometimes I had three jobs going at once. Think about it. At the most, I could only go to each of the jobs twice each week. That involved working on Saturday of course. This made a lot of framing foremen extremely upset. They had full time crews on their jobs always working five days a week. If I missed one day of work. I was behind for the rest of the job.

Now it rarely happened but if I did miss a day of work I had to make it up some how. The only way to make it up was by working late or on Sunday. Well most of the time I worked six days a week from 7:00 in the mourning until 5:00 at night. So working late meant sunrise to sunset. Oh did I mention that I did have a family. This wasn't easy for them either.

One time I got so far behind on a job that I was putting stairs in while they were roofing the houses. Talk about one unhappy foreman. I think you get the idea about the pressure I was under to install these stairs on time. My experience building stairs on track built homes taught me to build homes extremely fast while being proficient.

I'm not interested in working like that anymore. My life is simple now and I want to keep it that way. The next time you see a construction worker working late on a Saturday show some compassion. Maybe by reading this article you will understand some of the pressure he is under.
Building tract homes is hard on you mentally and physically.
Happy Home building.

About The Author
Greg Vanden Berge started working with his father in 1978 building stairs on residential tract homes. Together they use to install 3 to 5 sets of stairs each day. Greg learned from a master carpenter the skills of home building and has a construction company Located in Vista California. Visit his web site for some great Home Remodeling Ideas.

Remodeling Your Home

The Time to Remodel Your Home is Now
by: ARA Content


(ARA) - Remodeling your home can be a daunting task and devoting quality time to make your house a home can be a challenge any time of the year. If you’ve been thinking of remodeling, now is a great time to freshen your home’s appearance and make it more energy efficient (www.abcseamless.com).

It's a good idea to inspect your home now. As you do this, ask yourself these questions:


Do I have high heating and cooling bills?

Is my current siding rotting, warping, fading or discontinued?

Can I hear outside noise when the windows are closed?

Do I have excessive heat gain in my home from the sun?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you might be in the market for a home-remodeling job. Knowing where to start can be very important. You might be wondering: Can I do a project like this myself or should I leave it up to the professionals? How much is this going to cost?

Here are some tips from ABC Seamless Siding (www.abcseamless.com) on how to choose a contractor:


Ask for references and visit some of the homes they have remodeled. Ask questions while you are there, too.

Check credentials and find out how long they have been in business. Are they a member of the National Association of Home Builders? Are they up to date with their licensing and insurance?

When it comes time to sign the contract, go over it thoroughly with the contractor and discuss any final questions with them before signing it.
Remember, quality is never cheap and the lowest bid isn’t always the best. It may seem like a headache at first to do research, but it will save time and money in the long run.

Once you’ve chosen a contractor, prioritize your projects.

With the rising costs of heating or cooling your home, the best place to start might be making your home more energy efficient. The U.S. Department of Energy says one-third of a home's air leakage comes from the walls, floors and ceilings.

One of the best ways to make your home more energy efficient is to install seamless steel siding. ABC Seamless, for example, can install its seamless steel siding year-round. Since it has the strength of steel, it is not vulnerable to extreme cold or heat. Vinyl siding expands and contracts greatly with changes in temperature, which limits its installation to certain times of the year.

Each home sided by ABC Seamless is wrapped with a blanket of Energy Star approved insulation before the siding is installed. With the increase in heating and cooling costs, this added insulation can save you money year round. The seamless steel also eliminates ugly seams and is virtually maintenance free.

Home remodeling can be a big project, but if you hire professionals, you can save a lot of time and effort. And an investment in a home-remodeling project now can save you money for years to come.

For more information on ABC Seamless Siding, visit www.abcseamless.com or call (800) 732-6577.

About The Author


Courtesy of ARA Content, http://www.aracontent.com/ ; e-mail: info@ARAcontent.com

ABC Seamless Steel Siding manufactures seamless log siding and seamless steel gutters on the job site. Based in Fargo, N.D., ABC Seamless Steel Siding has 125 franchises in 38 states.

Home Plastering For Beginners

The Plastering Course To Suit Your Needs
by: Kirk Smith



There are various types of plastering courses available in England. There are courses for beginners who want to pursue it as a hobby, or want to make it into a career. For tradesmen and builders there are advanced courses who want training for a career in plastering or even specialist plastering.

The Gold trowel Plastering Organization offers specialized courses for certified Plastering courses or Advanced Skimming courses. There is a complete 10-day advanced certified Plastering course which includes written materials and videos before and after the course.

The City Guilds has an entire training centre called Able Skills, where plastering is the main subject taught. There is a course to suit each person's needs, whether you are a beginner or coming in to learn some advanced technology of plastering.

The courses are planned with the needs of the students in mind. There are short courses and the timings are flexible. Courses are also held on weekends; as Able Skills is open all days of the week. Several qualification routes are also available, and there are trainers for every field.

They are all experts in this field and have worked several years within the trade. Each one is a qualified teacher as well, so that they can conduct examinations and assess and internally verify the qualification courses.

The students are provided with all the necessary materials and tools. At the training centre there is enough practical training given, and each student works on a portion of a wall or a ceiling. He learns practically everything that he has come to learn and once he leaves, he is in a position to tackle any situation back home.

The Hawk and Trowel Plastering Centre based in Brighton also provides a professional training facility for plastering. Here too there are weekend courses and all the work is taught through a pure practical training program.

The people who visit the courses are varied, from students to tradesmen, from home improvers to property developers. It is possible for anybody to learn the art of plastering. All that you have to do is attend a course and you might even change your career. You need not come in with any experience, only the will to learn and the plan to carry out successfully what you have learnt.

For each trainer there are seven students, so that each student has the privilege to enjoy individual attention. The trainers are highly qualified with plenty of experience to their credit. The atmosphere in these short training programs is relaxed and friendly. All in all it makes a good learning environment.

The topics that are covered in the training program are floor screeding, using the plasters , how to fix floating beads to reveals, how to fix different beads, the methods of boarding to bare wall areas, skimming and there are discussions on different backgrounds and types of finishes.

The six-week Plastering course will attain you a National Qualification in Plastering. The correct choice and use of tools and electrical equipment is also taught, which will be of help to all, when they work on their own.



About The Author

Kirk Smith

Read more about the hottest plastering topics right now by visiting http://www.learnhowtoplaster.com/. The internets leading plastering forum for plasterers. Check out the site right away and ask all the questions you like! Lots of info available.

Acquiring Construction Equipment

By: Chris Warren



Many companies and contractors in need of acquiring new or used construction equipment often don't have the financial resources needed to buy the construction equipment outright, unless it is a large corporation or some branch of the government. This is when the option of renting or leasing construction equipment comes into play. Deciding to rent or lease often depends on what the contractor or business manager feels most comfortable doing from a financial perspective after evaluating the many possibilities and deciding what suits their need from long term leasing to short term renting. The side of construction equipment rentals has met a positive growth since 2004, where nearly 50% of construction equipment dealers' are offering heavy equipment rentals as part of their operation.

There are two ways most companies acquire their construction equipment, renting or leasing. Many contractors or business managers viewed renting or leasing as an opportunity to test out construction equipment at no extra cost and with no strings attached with the possibility of buying. Most often the rental would be converted into a purchase to avoid losing the invested equity. Most buyers would also take into account whether their business is flourishing or floundering, before committing to buying any construction equipment. In a case where a business has an uncertain future, the potential buyers may deem renting as the best way economically and then return the construction equipment to its owner when the job is done.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) is the international trade and business development resource for companies that manufacture equipment, products and services used worldwide in the construction, agricultural, mining, forestry, and utility fields. The AEM has conducted a survey that predicted that in the near future, more construction equipment buyers will turn to the Internet for product purchases; as construction equipment buyers increasingly turn to the Internet for transactions, information and support.

Consequently, the rise of on-line auctions, sales, renting and leasing are made available by a variety of merchants who cater to the needs of companies and contractors worldwide. On-line merchants such as: Machine Mart, Rock & Dirt, Machinery Trader, Iron Planet, Contractors Hotline, etc. are only a few of the leading markets where companies and contractors alike can find nearly every piece of construction equipment they are looking for, from the top manufacturers such as Caterpillar and John Deere to many more. Many of these merchants offer the options of buying, selling, renting and leasing of new and used construction equipment to parts service and repair and machine maintenance. It's always wise to investigate the background of any merchant before you place a bid or purchase any construction equipment, to ensure a good reputable stand point before entering into a contract with any dealer or merchant. It's always wise to shop around and compare deals on construction equipment to other offers before committing to any deal.

About The Author


Chris Warren, Construction Engineer and Construction Equipment Sales engineer at cBuild Group LLC ( http://www.construction-equipment-financing.net ) publishes other articles related to Construction Equipment Sales at http://www.used-construction-equipment-hq.com and http://www.heavy-equipment-prices.com .

Home Improvement Crisis Looming

By: Steve Houlihan



In recent years, it seemed that you just couldn’t go wrong when improving your home. No matter what renovations were undertaken, or how much was spent, the property ended up being worth more than the original cost plus the cost of improvements.

In fact, many people have been making a living from flipping houses – buying a property, doing a quick make-over, and on-selling for a profit.

On paper, just about every renovation has seemed to be profitable. And yet the reality is that many home improvements are a financial disaster without people realising it. How can this be?

The answer lies in the steadily improving market prices of most properties, particularly those in sought-after areas such as California USA and Queensland Australia. A rising market will tend to hide poor home improvement decisions.

Let’s take an example. Imagine a house bought in 2004 for $400,000. During 2005, $60,000 is spent on improvements, and in early 2006 the property is sold for $500,000. Leaving aside the transaction and holding costs for simplicity, that’s a profit of $40,000 on the renovations, right?

Maybe. Maybe not. You see, what you have to take into account is what that property would be worth in 2006 if no improvements had been done. Let’s say the general market growth had taken the value of that unimproved property to $450,000 during the 2004-2006 period. This represents a profit of $50,000, $10,000 more than the profit achieved through the home improvements being done.

By doing the improvements, the home owners needed $60,000 to fund the renovation costs, as well as all the time required to supervise the renovations and/or do some of the work. And they would have made more money by doing absolutely nothing!

You might be thinking, “Well, it doesn’t matter really, because the property is still able to be sold at a profit”, and to an extent you are right. The problem occurs when the market stops growing, and the market flattens out.

During 2005, thousands of property renovators on the east coast of Australia were caught out in exactly this way, when the property market in major cities went decidedly flat after a strong boom period ended in 2004. Because the market had stopped going up, many renovators who tried to sell their properties found that the market price of the property was less than the original cost plus the home improvement costs.

Those renovators who did not actually have to sell, had the option to wait for future increases in the overall market to lift the price of their property enough to cover their costs. But those who had to sell after carrying out unwise home improvements found that they were facing losses, in some cases very substantial losses.

The flow-on effect for the Australian market has been that there are few property investors around now, and expenditure on home improvement products is sliding.

The property market in the US is still quite buoyant, but there are many signs that the market’s bull run is coming to an end. This is a time for home improvers to be cautious.

It is still possible to undertake profitable home improvements, but renovators need to follow strict guidelines and be very disciplined in their approach. Home improvements need to make financial sense whether the market is going up or not. After all, no-one wants to be caught once the music stops.

About The Author


Steve Houlihan is author of the book “The 10 Deadly Sins of Renovating for Profit” available from www.renovating4profit.com .

Home Improvement Ideas

We are going to continue to update this area of the web site to bring you up to date new and creative building ideas. The home improvement ideas area is designed to give you as many remodeling ideas as possible for your house.



There is also a home remodeling pictures area and building library you can use to get home improvement ideas from.


Use these areas to find ideas and then send me the links so I can get a idea of what home remodeling projects you are looking for when you send me a email for a home remodeling estimate. I can look at the pictures on this web site along with some pictures of your home or the area in your home to complete a online home remodeling estimate.

Stair Article Tip

Most stairways can be seen as you enter the front door the reason being you can treated as a piece of furniture. Something extremely decorative and nice to look at. If you notice as you walk in the front door in most houses you will be able to see the stairs, living room and dining room. The reason for this is simple most architects realize your living room and dining room are focal points in your home. Your stairway being a nether focal point should be nice to gaze upon.

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