Watershape University: Filling a Void
Swimming pools are so commonplace; it’s easy to take them for granted. When we step back and consider, in specific terms, what the industry is about and what it does, however, we find a profound and even surprising need for education as well as licensing and certification.
Why We Need a Design Code for Concrete Pools
The swimming pool design and construction indus- try is not highly regulated, and in some cases, it is simply not regulated. Some states and municipalities require licensed professional engineers to design all pools. Some jurisdictions require only commercial pools to have a set of plans and specifications that are produced and sealed by a licensed design engineer. Unfortunately, they have no requirements for a licensed engineer to design a residential pool.
Programa de calificación para contratistas de concreto lanzado para piscinas de ASA
Han sido unos años salvajes en la industria de las piscinas, con un crecimiento en algunas áreas de la industria estimado en más del 500% y desafor- tunadamente no todo es bueno. La pandemia por el COVID 19 atrajo a cientos de miles de clientes de piscinas, y en la primavera aparecían nuevos constructores de piscinas como conejos.
ASA Pool Shotcrete Contractor’s Qualification Program
It’s been a wild few years in the pool industry with growth in some areas of the industry estimated to be up over 500%, and it’s not all good unfortunately. The COVID Pandemic brought pool buyers out by the hundreds of thousands, and new pool builders were popping up like baby rabbits in the Spring. The pre-pandemic market had a poor balance of shotcrete contractors to pool builders with there being slightly more demand for shotcrete contractors than supply.
Robust Contentment
This beautiful project, nestled on the Connecticut shores of the Long Island Sound, required a careful balance of robust construction and design, and careful adherence to environmental codes protecting the adjacent oceanic rock formations and biologically sensitive tide pools. “It was a steep challenge,” explains Bill Drakeley, but he and his company welcomed the opportunity. This project started with a spectacular setting. It’s located in Connecticut in an area known as the Gulf Coast on the Long Island Sound. It’s in an exclusive, private community where people both enjoy the outdoor lifestyle but are also mostly very private. It’s not a place where they have neighborhood block parties.
The Jetcreter – The First Continuous-Feed, Dry-Mix Gun
During the summer of 1970, on my 18th birthday, my father woke me up and told me they needed me on a job. I drove out that morning in July to the Crucible Specialty Steel plant in Midland, PA. It was my first experience working on a Gunite job. We were gunning refractory in a vessel, and I was throwing 100 lb (46 kg) bags of pre-packaged refractory into a paddle mixer to pre-dampen the material. We emptied the paddle mixer on sheets of plywood and shoveled the pre-dampened refractory material into the dry-mix shotcrete gun’s hopper. The Jetcreter was a continuous-feed gun, and it was tough for us to keep up with it. It was a very long day for me because it took 15 hours to complete the gunning. I left the house that morning in the dark and returned home in the dark. That was my introduction to “Gunite” (now referred to as dry-mix shotcrete).
Sobre Productividad, Cálculo de Costos de Trabajo y Éxito en el Shotcrete
Como miembro de la Sociedad de Honor Internacional en Economía y con una doble licenciatura en Finanzas y Banca, ingresé al mundo del shotcrete preparado de manera un poco diferente que la mayoría de los que ingresan a esta industria. Eso fue hace más de 20 años, pero los principios de comprender el tiempo, el valor del dinero y los costos de oportunidad están indeleblemente grabados en mi psique. En la actualidad, junto con mi socio comercial, quien también proviene de un entorno de fabricación y negocios en un campo internacional, dirigimos una empresa de transporte, una empresa de concreto lanzado vía seca, una empresa de PebbleTec y una empresa de diseño, todo bajo un mismo techo. En conjunto, tenemos entre 55 y 60 empleados en cualquier día dado. En un negocio de este tamaño, la productividad y la comprensión de los costos laborales son clave para sobrevivir.
On Productivity, Job Costing, and Successful Shotcreting
As a member of the International Honor Society in Economics and with a double BS in Finance and Banking, I came into the world of shotcrete prepared a little differently than most entrants to the field. That was over 20 years ago, but the principles of understanding Time, the Value of Money, and Opportunity Costs are indelibly ingrained into my psyche.