Even though drywall installation is a straightforward job and in many cases homeowners may consider it their next DIY project, it still takes skills and experience to do it right. The scale and importance of your drywalling project is a factor you should take into account. It can be a labor intensive work and at times too technical. If you have already ruled out doing it yourself, you don?t want to end up hiring an inexperienced contractor without the required skills. The moment you choose to hire, you must consider going for a professional drywall contractor with a proven record of experience.

Check out completed projects

It?s not hard to tell a perfectly done drywall project. All the walls should be smooth such that you can?t tell where the joints of the different drywall sheets are located. If you see several projects the contractor has completed in the past with such high quality finishing, it should indicate that the drywalls were properly installed. The cutting, shaping, hanging, fastening, sealing, taping and joint compound coating of the drywall must have been all done right. That makes great results evident once finishing with priming and painting is done.

Request for credentials

A professional contractor with great reputation never fails to provide any information you request to prove how genuine their service is. It is important to work with a contractor that is properly certified, licensed and insured. They must be willing to provide every proof for all these credentials, so don?t just take their word for it.

Ask them more questions

It?s important to find out the contractor?s years of experience, if they have a crew, how they get the job done exactly, whether they will obtain permits, what the inclusions are, detailed estimates, project start and end dates, written contract agreement, etc. A professional service provider will not evade any of your questions, so if they hesitate to provide answers that should raise a red flag.

Ask for references

The willingness of the contractor to let you know what their clients say about them tells you they stand by the quality of their work. If they are great they must already be having happy customers and will gladly prove it to you.

When you're in construction and you need a specific piece of equipment, you usually have just a few options available to get the job done. You can rent the equipment, and then have to deal with the rental's shortcomings that have developed from abuse by other renters. You can buy the equipment, and have to lay out a large chunk of change or arrange financing. You can lease the equipment and be a nervous wreck that every time it's going to be used, something will happen that will cause problems with the lease. But there's a new option that has come into the playing field recently, called peer to peer equipment rental. What is it and what can it do for your business? Read on for more details.

In its most basic form, peer to peer equipment rental is similar to the sharing industry business models set up by Uber and AirBnB. It essentially provides a marketplace for you to connect with people who want to rent equipment from or to you. Industry giants like Caterpillar have even gotten into the game, investing in California's Yard Club as part of their strategy to avoid disruption in the market from digitization. But how does it work?

Much like AirBnB, a peer to peer equipment rental platform allows construction businesses to list their idle equipment between jobs, providing them with an additional income stream while ramping up or down from a big project. A contractor who needs the equipment can then rent it through the platform and make arrangements to obtain access to the equipment, either through the platform itself or by working with the contractor renting the equipment to them. Both parties are vetted as part of the account setup process to ensure safe transactions.

But how much can you make from renting your equipment during your down time? One California company saw an additional $100,000 in revenue from equipment rentals their first year trying the program. Other peer to peer equipment rental models are using sensors and telemetrics to track equipment performance and location, providing additional security and a better way for the owner to track the rented equipment and what's being done with it.

What does this mean for your business? Instead of having to invest in expensive equipment, you can rent the equipment you need, when you need it. This helps lower your overhead, especially during down times when the equipment may otherwise sit idle instead of earning its keep. If you have equipment available to rent, it can provide you with additional revenue streams when you need it most.

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The New England states are well known for their extreme winters, while climate change is leading to some record-breaking summers. How do you keep your crew working during these extremes? By pre-planning your work and using creative problem solving, you can get a lot done in even the most demanding of conditions. Here are some tips to keep in mind when planning a job in poor weather or environmental conditions.

Focus on developing safety measures that are specific to the project.

If you're in a rapidly-shifting environment, it may make sense to hold a daily safety meeting and hazard analysis before the day's work begins.

Minimize how much work is done on-site in poor conditions when possible.

If you know that you'll need a certain number of electrical conduit assemblies with 10/3 wire at a particular length, cut and put together with wire as much of the assembly as possible, leaving one end unadhered and able to be cut to a shorter length if necessary. This allows you to make last-minute adjustments while minimizing exposure time.

Include down time, waste material and additional set-up and tear-down time in your quote to ensure you've covered all your bases.

When the environment is tough to work in, you'll end up spending more time getting your crew moving and demobilized as well as having more job site waste.

How will you get there from here?

If there's difficult access to the work site, you'll need to account for that. Can your equipment and material fit on a boat if the site is on an island or inaccessible by land? Will you need to cross delicate environments that will require the use of construction mats for equipment or around the construction site? Be sure to include that in your job costing.

What health problems can you expect for your employees in that environment?

Cold, wet conditions lend themselves to hypothermia and frostbite. Enclosed areas will require proper ventilation to prevent suffocation. Hot weather requires a close watch for heat-related illness, sunburn and dehydration. Make sure your crew takes regular breaks when working in extreme environments.

Will housing on site make the project go more quickly?

If you need to spend a couple hours every day just getting to the site and the same amount leaving it, it may make sense to see about setting up a bunk room on site to stay in while the project is underway. Keep in mind that this will also require setting up sanitary services, food preparation areas as well as dining and down-time areas to unwind.

Take advantage of local talent.

If you're working on a resort or recreation area where the employees are familiar with the weather and road conditions and are already trained to deal with them, see if you can employ them to help with hauling in and out as well as monitoring upcoming weather conditions that could stall the project.

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When you're working on a serious project, sometimes you need a building wrap that delivers more. With the pounding that a commercial job site provides, you need something tougher that will still be there at the end of the project. Though there are many building wraps available for this type of job, DuPont's Tyvek CommercialWrap has some great benefits that puts it above the competition. Here's why we recommend it:

Superior Performance On The Job Site

Though we expect Tyvek to be tough, CommercialWrap is even tougher. It has an even higher tear strength than regular Tyvek, as it's constructed using spun-bonded polyethylene atá7.1 mils. This makes it more resistant to those accidents that would otherwise have you repairing your building wrap. Additional UV protection is built in to the fabric, providing up to nine months of UV exposure before degrading.

You can also use CommercialWrap to build an extremely efficient envelope system for your building evenáin a variety of wall systems, including stucco, stone, metal panels, brick, granite, marble and synthetic stucco. The building wrapáis designed to integrate seamlessly into your project's design, leaving only a beautiful appearance and significantly lower energy bills behind.

Superior Air And Vapor Barrier

CommercialWrap provides significant benefits in creating a superiorábuilding envelope system. These benefits include significantly lower energy bills, a more comfortable work environment and better indoor air quality. The needs that CommercialWrap meets include:

• Air barrier. CommercialWrap prevents significant airáleakage, leading to more efficient building operations.áBy helping reduce movement into and out of the building envelope, HVAC systems operate much more efficiently, reducing energy costs.áCommercialWrap helps prevent air movement withináthe wall system, protecting insulation from drafts and letting it perform to its rated R-value. This combination reduces the energy requirements thatácost commercial buildings across the industryábillions of dollars everyáyear.

• Vapor permeable barrier. In addition to keeping air out, CommercialWrap allows water vapor to escape when excess moisture gets in, such as during a fire or flood. This property allows theáwall system to dry, prevent moldáwhileáprotecting and improving building air quality.á

• Water barrier. By preventing wateráinfiltration, CommercialWrap providesásuperioráwater exclusion, keeping insulation dry and and able to perform atáits ratedáR-value, while preventing costly wood and metal damageáas well asámold and mildew.

Because of this balance of properties, CommercialWrap improves building performance in a diverse range of climates and temperatures through all four seasons.

Superior Green Construction And Energy Savings

Did you know 30-50% of the energyáused in aácommercial building is wasted because of air movement, mostlyáthrough the building envelope?áBy providing a superior seal for commercial buildings,ágood-quality building wrapálowers that figure by up to 85%, according to a 2005 National Institute of Standard and Technology report.áThis drasticallyáreducesáthe energy required toáheatáand cool the structure by up to 40% forágas heat and up to 25% for electric climate control systems.

As businesses are turning to green building practices, energy codesáare changing, recognizingáhow important it is to have aáproperly sealed building envelope. As more focus is put on the impact of energy efficiency and environmental conservation, CommercialWrap helps meet those tight energy codes today and into a more sustainable future. CommercialWrap has been used in a number of U.S. Green Building Council LEED-certified structures and helps provide points towards these environmentally friendly buildings.

Superior Support From A Brand You Trust

If you have questions or need to know what other contractors have done in a sticky situation, CommercialWrap use includes access toáThe DuPont?áTyvek«áSpecialist Network to provide expertáonsite adviceáfrom start to finish.áCommercialWrap also carriesáa 10-year limited warranty from DuPont.

Now that you've had an opportunity to learn more about Tyvek's CommercialWrap, why not take the next step? Contact us for a quote or to schedule a delivery from one of our convenient 4-state locations.

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Can ceiling tiles enhance the acoustical characteristics of a room? Most definitely. When shopping for a new ceiling tile, it?s best to evaluate the whole package.

Builders and interior designers who are searching for an affordable method to lower the height of a modern room as well as deaden ambient noise turn to acoustic ceiling tiles. Using this method, cooling as well as heating ducts can be hidden behind these ceilings, alone with unsightly wires used in overhead lighting and pipes for plumbing fixtures.

Consider this before purchasing:

The phrase ?acoustical ceiling tile? not only has as much to do with marketing as it does with making a difference in the sound environment within a given room. Originally, conventional drop ceiling tiles were used because they were easy to install and provided convenient access to the areas above the ceiling and were inexpensive. They were not the prettiest tiles and weren?t first purchased for their acoustics.

A conventional room has, at a minimum, six surfaces which include four walls, a floor and a ceiling. Sound moves equally in all directions. Sound also has the potential to be reflected, to pass through, or to be absorbed by all surfaces. Not all tiles are rated in all three categories. Please note that each persons results will be different, due to where you are using the tiles and how.

Noise Reduction Coefficient

Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) is a rating which informs how much sound surface will absorb. The higher the decimal or percent of rating, the more sound the tile will absorb.

Sound Transmission Class

Sound Transmission Class (STC) this type of rating is used to learn what the ability to block sound is. This is helpful, but does not tell you what will happen to sound once it is blocked, and it is usually used for walls.

Ceiling Attenuation Class

Ceiling Attenuation Class (CAC) is really a completely separate rating system. It does deal with sound absorption but it is a bit more specific. This rating is commonly misunderstood as a rating that describes how much sound reflects off the face of a tile.

When looking for a ceiling tile, consider the following: if a tile completely absorbs about 50% of the sound it contacts (NCR), the other 50% has got to go somewhere. If the tile has a good STC, most likely most of the remaining sound will bounce back into a room.

It is important to think about ratings when shopping for tiles. Hard surfaces tend to reflect sound, while softer surfaces absorb sound. There are many various companies which carry acoustic ceilings such as CertainTeed. CertainTeed ceilings carry a variety of styles for all your needs.

Why We Carry CertainTeed Products

In addtion, CertainTeed provides Health Product Declarations (HPDs) and continues its commitment to transparency with its Environmental Product Declaration (EPDs.) They offer 5 EPDs encompassing 23 different ceiling panels and 7 HPDs encompassing 30 ceiling panels. CertainTeed is also a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and they lead the way in the effort to provide solutions that promote sustainable design. CertainTeed incorporates sustainability in every step. From the products raw material content to how it?s handled through manufacturing and shipping as well as throughout life of the product.

If this has sparked an interest in CertainTeed's product lines, be sure to download our free CertainTeed Acoustical Ceilings Product Guide below. It's full of data for engineers and is a great resource for those looking at acoustical ceiling solutions.

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