Which Construction Equipment is Most Likely to Be Stolen and Tips to Prevent it From Happening

October 12, 2015 Shane Hedmond

The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) has released their full 2014 report on construction heavy equipment theft (PDF download) and the news is not great: theft has risen roughly 1.2 percent versus 2013. According to the report, a total of 11,625 pieces of equipment were stolen in 2014, compared to 11,486 in 2013. The annual report is co-authored by the National Equipment Register (NER) and examines and analyzes data from the National Crime Information Center. The NICB estimates the equipment theft costs between $300 million to $1 billion annually.

America Concrete Institute Releases Guide to the Code for Concrete Repair and Rehabilitation

October 9, 2015 Shane Hedmond

The American Concrete Institute (ACI) has just released a companion guide to the ACI 562-13 Code Requirements for Evaluation, Repair, and Rehabilitation of Concrete Buildings. Aimed at contractors, inspectors, owners, and manufacturers, the guide’s main goal is to provide insight into the interpretations and explain the proper use of the ACI 562 principles.

North America’s Tallest Wood Building to Be Built in Quebec

October 8, 2015 Shane Hedmond

The Origine Condominium Complex.  Rendering courtesy of Nordic Structures — The Origine Condominium Complex. Rendering courtesy of Nordic Structures

Buildings have been made with wood for thousands of years, but those buildings rarely make it above a couple stories high. Due to building codes and requirements, non-combustible materials like concrete and steel are required to be used in most commercial buildings. Typical timber buildings, like many North American houses will easily burn in the right conditions, but more and more projects are using cross-laminated timber (CLT) which has excellent non-combustion properties

Amazing Excavator Attachment Combines Digging and Hammering in One Machine

October 7, 2015 Shane Hedmond

During excavations, we typically hope we run into mostly “soft stuff,” that easy to remove dirt that lets us get our work done quickly. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go exactly like that a lot of the time, whether you run into a large rock that needs broken up or a huge chunk of concrete gets in the way. When that happens, you either need to change attachments or have another piece of heavy machinery to get the job done. A Texas business man decided there had to be a better way, so he did something about it.

Construction Workers Prank New Guy With Hilarious Fake Seismic Test

October 6, 2015 Shane Hedmond

There are many classic pranks that construction workers pull on the new guy on the site, such as being sent to find a left handed hammer or a light bulb repair kit, but this one might just be the most tiring.

Virginia Tech Engineers Develop New Safety Vest That Could Save Lives

October 5, 2015 Shane Hedmond

Construction sites are some of the most dangerous places in the world. Couple a job site with the general public and they’re disasters waiting to happen. According to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, 579 people were killed in highway work-zone related accidents in just 2013 alone. Professor Tom Martin and Kristen Hines, engineers at Virginia Tech, hope to greatly reduce that number with their recent development of a smart safety vest that gives several seconds of warning to workers if danger is approaching.

New App Helps You Determine the Risk of Plastic Concrete Shrinkage

October 2, 2015 Shane Hedmond

Concrete, the most widely used building material in the world, can be very temperamental in certain weather conditions. Due to its poor tensile strength, concrete is almost always certain to crack, but professionals do their best to reduce the size and delay their appearance. A new app is hoping to reduce the risk of concrete, plastic shrinkage by monitoring weather patterns.

Watch this Permeable Concrete “Drink” 1,000 Gallons of Water in a Minute

October 1, 2015 Shane Hedmond

As California and several other states have recently found out, water conservation is a huge deal to resident’s quality of life and the environment’s overall health. Allowing water to drain naturally is a huge part of keeping our aquifers filled with water, but our roadways and parking surfaces are mostly impermeable surfaces, causing us to redirect rainfall unnaturally into drains and sewers. Sudden and large amounts of rainfall in a short period of time can lead to extremely hazardous conditions, like flooding.

Watch Two Power Station Chimneys Crash Into Each Other in an Incredibly Controlled Demolition

September 30, 2015 William Lucus

Building implosions are always fun to watch, although sometimes they just don't go quite right. So when companies can accurately control a demolition and have two structures hit in mid-air, it's a thing of beauty! The Cockenzie power station in Scotland has two 487 foot tall chimneys and when it came time to demolish them, there was no better way then to have them strike mid-collapse.

CAT Builds the World’s First Moving Golf Course on the Backs of their Dump Trucks

September 29, 2015 Shane Hedmond

"Our customers work hard, but they also play hard,” said Archie Lyons, Creative Director of Global Brand Marketing for Caterpillar Inc. to explain the crazy site of watching a golf course move around on the backs of several of CAT’s heavy machines. After watching the video below, it seems like the perfect encapsulation of that phrase and a whole lot of fun to try out.