BMC STOCK HOLDINGS, INC. (NASDAQ:BMCH) Files An 8-K Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of ... Market Exclusive ... product specification, installation, and installation management services. It offers a range of products sourced through a network of suppliers. It also offers various products, including hardware, wood boards, gypsum, insulation, roofing, siding ... and more »

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BMC STOCK HOLDINGS, INC. (NASDAQ:BMCH) Files An 8-K Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of ... - Market Exclusive

Exhibits range from stone work, landscaping, and sellers of sheds, gazebos, hot tubs and pools, to kitchen and bathroom remodeling, home security systems, windows and skylights, sunrooms, and roofing and siding.

SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. The 15th annual Southern Rhode Island Home Show is taking place this weekend at the University of Rhode Island's Ryan Center.

Show organizer Dean Appleman said 106 companies are exhibiting at the show, which was open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and will continue Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Appleman said he expects attendance to be between 9,000 and 11,000 people.

Exhibits run the gamut of home improvement products and services, from stone work, landscaping, and sellers of sheds, gazebos, hot tubs and pools, to kitchen and bathroom remodeling, home security systems, windows and skylights, sunrooms, and roofing and siding sales and installation. Appleman said representatives from local banks will also be on hand to assist those who need help financing their home-improvement projects.

Appleman said cash-and-carry items will be available for sale.

Energy companies will also be at the show, including solar energy vendors. "Solar is really big this year," said Appleman, who produces home shows all across New England. "It has really taken off."

General admission is $7, or $5 with a coupon. Children 12 and under may enter free with an adult.

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Southern Rhode Island Home Show draws thousands to Ryan Center - The Providence Journal

Clinton A. Matthews, of Canton, and his business Matthews Home Services LLC are accused of violating Ohios Consumer Sales Practices Act. In the lawsuit, DeWine seeks reimbursement for consumers and an end to any violations of the law.

According to the lawsuit, Matthews did business as Matthews Home Services, offering home improvement services, such as basement or home office remodeling and vinyl siding installation.

The Ohio Attorney Generals Office has received three complaints against Matthews Home Services. Estimated consumer losses total about $4,550.

Additional complaints have been filed with the Better Business Bureau. In their complaints, consumers generally said Matthews took their money but failed to start the work as scheduled, provided multiple excuses for delays, and either never did any work or did work that was shoddy.

The lawsuit, filed in the Stark County Court of Common Pleas, accuses Matthews of failure to deliver and shoddy workmanship.

DeWine offered consumers the following recommendations to help prevent home improvement problems:

Research a company before making any payments. Search for complaints on file with the Ohio Attorney Generals Office or Better Business Bureau. Also conduct an internet search with the name of the business and words like reviews or complaints. Be skeptical if you find no information. Some operators change business names regularly to make it harder for consumers to detect their record of shoddy work.

Get multiple estimates. For a large job, consider contacting at least three different businesses before making a final selection. Keep in mind that the company that gives you the lowest estimate may not necessarily deliver the best results.

Check your cancellation rights. If a home improvement contractor does not have a fixed place of business or comes to your door to offer services, you may be entitled to a three-day right to cancel the contract under Ohios Home Solicitation Sales Act. Make sure you receive detailed written information about your cancellation rights.

Make sure verbal promises are put in writing. Get a detailed written contract including any verbal claims the contractor makes and other important details, such as the estimated cost of the work, the expected start and end dates, and the names of the individuals who will perform the services.

Be wary of requests for large down payments. Its reasonable for a contractor to require a down payment, but be skeptical if youre asked to make a large down payment (such as half or more of the total cost) before any work begins. If possible, pay in increments as the work is completed.

Consumers who suspect an unfair or deceptive sales practice should contact the Ohio Attorney Generals Office at http://www.OhioProtects.org or 800-282-0515.

A copy of todays lawsuit is available on the Ohio Attorney Generals website.

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Home improvement contractor accused of not keeping promises - Norwalk Reflector

Valley Brook Apartments includes 240 units, 213 of which are affordable.

Birmingham, Ala.Steele Properties acquired and plans to rehabilitateValley Brook Apartments, an affordable community located at 2969 Gallant Drive in Birmingham, Ala. for $24.8 million. Renovations will begin in April 2017 and are set for completion in spring 2018. The property will be managed by Monroe Group.

Valley Brook Apartments

The 240-unit community offers one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging from 750 to 1,050 square feet, according to Yardi Matrix.Of the total unit amount, 213 apartments are affordable.

Valley Brook will receive $47,000 per unit in hard cost rehabilitation as part of the acquisition. The renovations will coverexterior and interior work, including building a new community center with a computer lab, laundry facilities and playground; replacing the vinyl siding with durable siding systems; the installation of new roofs; the addition of hard wired smoke and carbon monoxide detectors; a new key fob controlled vehicular access gate with security guard shack; a new security camera system and improved lighting. Interior upgrades will include new electrical, paint, flooring and doors; the addition of energy efficient lighting and water saving features; new countertops, cabinets and Energy Star appliances in the kitchens and new vanities, tubs and fixtures in the bathrooms. Full ADA conversions will be completed on 12 of the units.

The project is financed with Low Income Housing Tax Credits and Tax-Exempt Bonds provided by the Alabama Housing Finance Authority.The project is funded by the sale of the Tax-Exempt Bond proceeds underwritten by R4 Capital and Tax Credit equity provided by PNC Bank.

We are proud to be preserving this affordable housing community that is in dire need of renovation, David Asarch, partner & chief investment officer of Steele Properties, told Multi-Housing News.Our entire development, construction, operations, compliance, finance and HR teams are working together to rehabilitate Valley Brook and make it a place where the residents are proud to call home.

Image courtesy of Yardi Matrix

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Steele Properties Acquires Affordable AL Community - Multi-Housing News

Designers of the Bell Museum + Planetarium at the University of Minnesotas St. Paul campus want the new facility to be as natural as possible.

When completed in the summer of 2018, the $79.2 million complex will showcase the states natural history and be made out of it.

About 40 percent of the new museums exterior is covered with locally sourced, thermally modified timber, or cooked wood as it has been dubbed. Designers believe the project is the largest commercial-scale use of thermally modified white pine in the country.

Its a beautiful wood, white pine, said Dave Dimond, a principal at the Minneapolis office of architecture firm Perkins+Will, which designed the new museum.

The challenge always has been that you cant use pine outdoors that it has to be protected by the weather, Dimond said. This is a really new and exciting way to use white pine in a way its never been used before.

About 21,000 square feet of white pine will be finished being installed this month on the outside of the museum located near Larpenteur and Cleveland avenues near the State Fairgrounds. A portion of the bottom half of the building is clad with steel from the Iron Range.

The architecture speaks to the story of Minnesota and nature in Minnesota. White pine is an iconic timber species from Minnesota, said George Weiblen, interim scientific director and curator of plants at the Bell Museum.

The white pine comes from state forest land in Cass Lake, located about 30 minutes from Bemidji, that has been certified by the international nonprofit Forest Stewardship Council for being responsibly managed. One of the focuses for researchers at the Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) at the University of Minnesota Duluth is how to help strengthen Minnesotas forestry industry in an environmentally sustainable way. Thermally modified wood is one of the products the group is studying.

One of the cool ways to grow the economy in northern Minnesota is to start looking at renewable resources, Dimond said. Rather than cutting down trees permanently, grow them sustainably and selectively cut them so that the forest remains. This is what got us excited about white pine, since it is native to Minnesota and does have some significant sustainable forest.

The process of cooking wood originated in Finland and while Europe has been experimenting with it for years, the process has had limited use in the United States, said Kelly Bartz, president at Duluth-based Arbor Wood Co., which sourced the wood and the local kiln needed for the museum project.

Arbor has been selling thermally modified wood for about four years, though it normally focuses on hardwoods like ash and red oak instead of pine, which is a softwood.

For the museum project, Arbor Wood selected Palisade, Minn.-based Superior Thermowood of Minnesota. About 8,000 board feet or enough wood to fill half a semitrailer truck was slowly heated in the kiln until it reached about 100 degrees Celsius. The heat cooks out the moisture and natural sugar that can cause wood to decay and attract insects. The heat is then spiked to 210 degrees Celsius so that the cellular makeup of the wood is changed, and it makes it less susceptible to water. The wood is cooled down with the addition of steam and is provided with some much-needed moisture so that the wood is not too brittle. The result is a wood that can withstand the elements without needing any other type of finishing. The entire process can take four to five days.

Several partners were needed to make the museum project work, including Cass Forest Products, the sawmill that harvested the pine, Woodline, the sawmill that prepared the thermally modified white pine for installation, and McGough, the construction company responsible for building the museum and installing the white pine.

This innovative way that Perkins+Will has come up with the siding for the Bell Museum is definitely intriguing to us, Bartz said. Now the supply-chain challenges that we had in the beginning, thats all figured out. We have resources and it is kind of interesting to work with something like white pine thats indigenous to Minnesota and is a newly-revitalized resource.

After 75 years on the U campus in Minneapolis, the old Bell Museum closed in December and will reopen next year on the St. Paul site.

Besides the wood siding, other natural elements are featured at the museum. There will be rain gardens to help reduce stormwater runoff from the parking lot. There will also be a pollinator garden and other native plant landscaping as well as solar panels on the roof.

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At new Bell Museum, designers turn to a new process to make building look natural - Minneapolis Star Tribune

In January, prosecutors in Riverside filed 30 felony charges against two longtime Palm Springs developers and a former mayor in an alleged $375,000 bribery scheme related to building projects downtown.

Ah, the romance of the desert! A place of fierce natural beauty and beguiling spiritual wonder! A rejuvenating refuge from the crushing pressures of modern urban life!

Desert X, the ambitious exhibition of new site-specific art installations scattered around the Coachella Valley, is successful partly because the 16 participating artists mostly skirt romanticized desert clichs or else they engage them, casting a skeptical or parodic eye. Perhaps surprisingly, none chose to consider the springs that made this corner of the desert bloom; but many works burrow into the areas complex history and heterogeneous present.

In Coachella, the easternmost town in the valley, Armando Lerma has painted a big, charming mural on the side of a modest neighborhood ice cream shop. Titled The Party in the Desert, its amiable rural imagery of clowns, a juggler, a table laden with cake and bowls of fruit, assorted revelers, a starburst piata, some chickens and a couple of dogs, unfolds its narrative slowly.

FULL COVERAGE: Spring arts guide 2017

Lermas chosen site on a scruffy industrial strip along railroad tracks looks back to the towns founding almost a century and a half ago as a siding for the Southern Pacific Railroad. The locales modesty reflects the working-class identity of a rough-edged town where more than a quarter of residents live below the poverty line.

Look closely, and the mural sports several small medallions of the Virgin of Guadalupe, saint and protector. In a wry gesture, they are affixed to the wall at places where metal bolts protrude, signaling earthquake retrofitting. Fiesta connects the ice cream store with the towns largely Latino local population.

Perhaps the murals most vital feature is its implied but incisive contrast to that other local party in the desert the raucous, corporately produced, hugely profitable Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival that annually invades the area just up the street in Indio, where the artist was born. Lerma grounds his marvelous mural in the routine social realities of place, yet without so much as a hint of critical disdain for what is finally just a different way for revelers to paint the town.

Twenty-eight miles away in Palm Springs, near the westernmost end of the valley, Mexican artist Gabriel Kuri, who lives and works in Los Angeles and Brussels, has brought a chunk of desert indoors. For Donation Box, hes filled half a storefront in a down-on-its-heels mini-mall at the edge of town with a deep layer of sand, piled into a desolate landscape of gently rolling dunes.

Peering through the plate-glass window, youll see hundreds of cigarette butts stuck in the sand, along with casually tossed coins. It loosely recalls Damien Hirsts giant ashtray sculptures, with their aura of forlorn grandiloquence, plus Chris Burdens monumental city-in-the-sand sculpture, A Tale of Two Cities, assembled from toys. Kuris is a grunge wishing well, radiating boom-and-bust.

Zigzagging across the region during the two days necessary to see all of Desert X, I put more than 175 miles on my odometer. (A free guidebook and map with GPS coordinates are available in the lobby of Ace Hotel & Swim Club on East Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs.) The physical distance between Lermas mural and Kuris sculpture is fitting for the sprawl that characterizes both the raw desert and its fitful development since the 1960s. The valley, once a string of villages, is primarily suburban now.

Indeed, the graphic logo for the shows title draws the X like a crossing sign. Desert Crossing is the name of a mid-valley shopping center.

The artists were selected by Neville Wakefield, 54, former curator of Frieze Projects, a program of artists commissions that is part of the Frieze Art Fair in London, and past advisor to PS1, the Long Island City affiliate of New Yorks Museum of Modern Art. Most Desert X commissions are clustered in Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage, but other projects are farther afield.

In the remote, drop-dead gorgeous landscape of the Whitewater Preserve, a bit more than five miles into rugged canyon country north of the 10 Freeway, L.A.-based Sherin Guirguis transformed sandbags, tree limbs and mud into an elegant, hive-shaped dovecote. The structure, based on pigeon towers commonly found in desert villages of her native Egypt, is a cross-cultural emblem of displacement and shelter.

So is Richard Princes grim installation, albeit of a wholly different character, in a disheveled quarter of nearby Desert Hot Springs. The ramshackle walls and surroundings of an abandoned hacienda-style house are plastered with printed blowups of sordid Twitter feeds that the artist scavenged for tales of banal indulgences in sex, drugs and rock n roll.

In keeping with the derelict domesticity of the works forlorn site, Prince focuses on vulgar tweets by and about dysfunctional families sisters, cousins, mothers and aunts. Voyeuristic trash gets tangled like litter in desert scrub.

According to an exhibition spokesman, the unsecured site has already been vandalized and several works looted from the house. Unsurprising, perhaps, for an artist whose queasy paintings of naughty nurses soft-porn imagery where nurture precedes betrayal have sold in the seven figures. But vandalisms crude delinquency merely serves to italicize Princes theme. Like Twitter, the installation makes hitherto secret vices brazenly public; vanity grates against shame.

Two artists Glenn Kaino and Will Boone have burrowed into the ground. Both view the desert as an ancient, wide-open expanse harboring topical secrets.

Kainos Hollow Earth is an ordinary storage shed set out in a bland field. Open the door, go inside and in the center of a small room lined in cheap fiberboard is a seemingly bottomless shaft ringed by a circular white grid that glows with a bluish light. A pristine infinity pit, it elicits playful childhood fantasies of tunneling all the way to China crossed with grown-up fears of sinister silos harboring the tools of Armageddon.

Speaking of bomb shelters, Boone built one beneath another dusty field. Clamber down a ladder, pass through a heavy steel door and enter a tubular metal shelter like a big sewer pipe. There sits a bulky bronze sculpture of President Kennedy, decorously painted red, white and blue, as if some pharaonic potentate buried in the sands of time.

Illuminated from overhead by a single, solar-powered bulb, the seated dignitary is both a Lincoln-like Monument, as the installation is titled, and a suspect ready for interrogation. The conundrum befits a national hero whose life and death are the subject of endless conspiracy theories. Hes the hidden love-match to Marilyn Monroe, whose likeness is plastered all over Palm Springs as an emblem of its midcentury Hollywood playground past.

Back above ground, two other artists have built walls. Both are Minimalist and hallucinatory.

Phillip K. Smith III, who gained acclaim four years ago for wrapping a remote desert shack with mirrored strips that made it seem on the verge of disappearing into Joshua Trees rugged landscape, is here with more mirror-play. This time he has crafted a big, bowl-shaped arena, 70 paces across and composed from scores of tall mirrored rods set up in a circle.

Canted outward on a 10-degree angle, the exterior reflects the earth back onto itself. The bowls interior reflects sky, incongruously surrounding an earthbound viewer. From both vantages the actual landscape is simultaneously seen between the shiny reflective bars. Normality alternates with a routine order of things thats been flipped on its head.

Near the base of a hiking trial, Swiss artist Claudia Comte has built a long, tall, undulating concrete wall. Its horizontal form slowly morphs from gentle curves at one end to an angular zigzag at the other. Comte has matched this brute material form with the same sequence of purely visual shapes vertical black stripes set against a blazing white ground, starting with rippling waves and ending with jagged lines.

Like rising waves of desert heat that lead one to delirium and back, the effect is surprisingly powerful. Sol LeWitts rigor mixes with Bridget Rileys verve. Minimalist Op art is rarely this good.

Illusion is likewise key to Jennifer Bolandes head-turning set of three double-sided billboards along the west side of Gene Autry Trail, a road leading in and out of the valley from the freeway. Bolande photographed the distant San Jacinto, Santa Rosa and San Bernardino mountain ranges, then enlarged the images to billboard scale. For one fleeting, disconcerting moment as you drive by, the wordless pictures line up exactly with the approaching view.

While the mountain contours match up precisely, the clarity, color and light inevitably do not. The quick drive-by sequence of three billboard moments is so brief that you cant quite be certain of what you have just witnessed.

Its like a flash-cut in a motion picture, subliminal in effect. A disjunction between image and reality is lodged in a path named for a half-forgotten cowboy star of movies and TV. The seamless fabric of experience gets torn.

Additional projects by Doug Aitken, Lita Albuquerque, Jeffrey Gibson, Norma Jeane, Rob Pruitt, Julio Sarmento and Tavares Strachan are also on view. The show is being seen as an art world answer to the wildly successful Coachella music festival, beginning April 14. (Desert X, continuing through April 30, overlaps with it.) While that connection makes marketing sense, in spirit the endeavor is more like a suburban version of the urban Sculpture Projects Mnster, a once-per-decade exhibition of commissioned public art throughout the German city.

The Mnster show, opening its fifth iteration in June, is among Europes most reliably engaging art events. Desert X organizers hope to mount their own sequel an excellent idea, given the overall artistic success of this one, although not yet certain.

If a serious flaw mars this otherwise admirable event, it is the sharp gender disparity in the current lineup. In 2017, no excuse is good enough for inviting only four women to participate among 16 artists. (An irony: The areas first major artist was transcendentalist painter Agnes Pelton, who arrived in Cathedral City in 1932.) If Desert X 2.0 does take place, the unforced error represents an easy fix.

Where: Various sites in the Coachella Valley; guidebook and map at Ace Hotel, 701 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs

When: Through April 30

Information: http://www.desertx.org

christopher.knight@latimes.com

Twitter: @KnightLAT

See our complete guide to spring arts events in L.A.

ALSO

Spring Arts Events Guide 2017

Chicano art pioneer Frank Romero is still painting, still loves cars and still defends ugly palm trees

Why Iceland? L.A. Phil's Reykjavik Festival highlights amazing music coming from an unlikely place

At Richard Telles Fine Art, Jim Isermann's illusions stack up

Diego Rivera's Cubist masterpiece arrives at LACMA

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International art invades the suburban Coachella Valley: The best of ... - Los Angeles Times

Muskegon man refuses to pay for remodeling to get smart meter

Sarah Sell, WZZM 7:04 PM. EST March 02, 2017

MUSKEGON, MICH. - A Muskegon man says he doesn't want a Consumers Energy smart meter, but its not for the reason you might think.

Tony Driscoll called 13 On Your Side after the utility company told him he would have to pay for the installation. "I told them I shouldn't have to pay for somebody to do that, when it's their meter, says Driscoll.

Driscoll says his current meter is in an odd place. Several years ago, it was installed in the corner of his house and its not enough space for a new smart meter. "We bought the house 23 years ago. I haven't moved it."

The house used to be masonry brick and 10 years ago tony says he had a contractor put siding on it for better insulation. Consumers Energy says the meter is in an unsafe location. Driscoll says the meter-readers never had a problem until recently.

Consumers Energy started installing smart meters in 2012. The device allows Consumers to read meters remotely.

"They want to eliminate a meter reader position, which makes them more profitable. I understand that, but I shouldn't have to bare that brunt," Driscoll says.

Drsicoll says he can either get a smart meter or opt-out -- meaning he would pay an initial fee of $69, then $9.72 a month to pay for the meter readers to come to his house.

Right now, there is proposed legislation that would allow residents to choose whether they want one and not be penalized, but Driscoll says "I never said I'm opting out, I'm saying I'm not paying for something you want to do."

Driscoll called 13 On Your Side when he says he wasn't getting anywhere with Consumers Energy. If he didn't opt-out, the company was threatening to shut off his service. He says a fair solution would be to let him keep what he has or do what they need to do at their cost.

Consumers Energy Spokesman, Roger Morgenstern says the company is willing to work with Driscoll. Morgensternsuggested he get an estimate on the work and when he know how much it will cost, Consumers Energy can try to come up with a fair solution.

In the meantime, the proposed legislation allowing people to opt-out of program without penalty is still making its way through the Michigan House of Representatives. Another hearing is scheduled for March 7, 2017.

Related: Rep. Glenn: Homeowners could reject 'smart meters' at no charge

Consumers says it's smart meters get rid of the need to estimate bills helps them respond better to outages.

Makeit easy to keep up to date with more stories like this.Download theWZZM13 app now.

Have an issue or problem the Watchdog Team should investigate? Emailwatchdog@wzzm13.com.

( 2017WZZM)

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Muskegon man refuses to pay for installation of Consumer's Energy ... - WZZM13.com

PATERSON NJ - 2 Mar, 2017 - Nationwide Window and Siding has earned the home service industrys coveted Angies List Super Service Award, reflecting an exemplary year of customer service to members of the local services marketplace and consumer review site in 2016.

This achievement is particularly significant as Angies List experienced unprecedented member growth in 2016. More than 1.6 million consumers, many of whom were eager to quickly hire highly-qualified service pros, joined Angies List after the company added a new, free membership tier.

Companies that can meet higher demands without missing a beat in their exemplary performance standards truly do stand apart from their peers, said Angies List Founder, Angie Hicks. Only a fraction of the windows and siding companies in New Jersey were able to do it.

Angies List Super Service Award 2016 winners have met strict eligibility requirements, which include an A rating in overall grade, recent grade, and review period grade. The SSA winners must also be in good standing with Angies List, pass a background check and abide by Angies List operational guidelines.

Service company ratings are updated daily on Angies List as new, verified consumer reviews are submitted. Companies are graded on an A through F scale in areas ranging from price to professionalism to punctuality.

The biggest change at Angies List is that we are connecting even more consumers to high quality service professionals, Hicks said. And thats good for everyone.

Nationwide Window and Siding looks forward to another year of hard work and satisfied customers in 2017. To read more about the companys exceptional work and excellent customer service, check out Nationwide Windows Reviews.

ABOUT NATIONWIDE WINDOW AND SIDING:

Nationwide Window and Siding is a highly-rated NJ home improvement company for replacement windows, vinyl siding, doors, roofing, and gutter system installation. Nationwide Windows custom products are built to last and its staff is the most knowledgeable in the industry with one of the only trainers in the state of New Jersey who is certified by the national training program, Installation Masters. Before beginning a project on your home, Nationwide Window offers all their customers a free home estimate.

ABOUT ANGIES LIST:

Angie's List helps facilitate happy transactions between more than 4.5 million consumers nationwide and its collection of highly-rated service providers in more than 720 categories of service, ranging from home improvement to health care. Built on a foundation of more than 10 million verified reviews of local service, Angie's List connects consumers directly to its online marketplace of services from member-reviewed providers, and offers unique tools and support designed to improve the local service experience for both consumers and service professionals.

Media Contact Company Name: Nationwide Window and Siding Contact Person: Lauren Restaino Email: pr@hudsonhorizons.com Country: United States Website: http://www.nationwidewindow.com/

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Nationwide Window and Siding Earns Esteemed 2016 Angie's List ... - Digital Journal

When it comes to protecting our homes from air and moisture infiltration, the building industry is quickly learning that there is such a thing as too tight. No matter how tightly a home is built, water is inevitably going to find its way in. And the tighter we build those walls, the harder it is to keep them dry. Attempting to stop all water and moisture completely is a recipe for disaster and a surefire way to ensure walls will get wet and stay wet.

In many places, building codes are driving the need for better moisture management solutions. The International Residential Code (IRC) now requires the use of water-resistive barriers, but some states have added even more prescriptive measures to their codes that now include the use of drainage planes, and others are expected to follow.

Thankfully, advances in material technology have resulted in innovative solutions for protecting our homes from the elements while also allowing them to both release vapor buildup and, in some cases, even drain bulk water.

Though exterior cladding is the first line of defense against outside water infiltration, housewraps have become a popular way to block whatever water is able to sneak through. And as building assemblies have gotten tighter, housewraps have taken on a new functionhelping to remove trapped water from the building enclosure. Their unique permeability enables them to both block moisture from the outside while also allowing walls to breathe to prevent vapor buildup. And the very latest innovations in housewrap technology is taking this moisture removal function one step further to incorporate drainage strategies, as well.

Todays most advanced housewrap products feature integrated drainage gaps through creping, embossing, weaving, or filament spacers. These new products eliminate the need for furring strips, helping to reduce material costs and streamline installation. Products that achieve a 1mm drainage plane, like TYPARs Drainable Wrap, can be as much as 100 times more effective than standard housewraps at removing bulk water from the wall.

These new drainable housewraps meet all current code requirements for drainability (ASTM E2273) without sacrificing any of the durability and ease of installation benefits builders and contractors have come to expect from premium housewraps, since they essentially handle and install the same. They are also vapor permeable, so moisture will not become trapped in the wall assembly and lead to mold or rot issues.

The ability to drain bulk water becomes even more important when installing a tightly fastened cladding such as cedar siding or fiber cement board, which could allow water trapped between the siding and a standard housewrap to pool. Drainable housewraps also work exceptionally well with reservoir claddings such as brick, stucco and stone, providing a capillary break that prevents any stored water from being forced into the wall assembly.

Advances in technology and building codes are driving adoption of better moisture management systems, and thats a great thing. While we cant completely stop water from getting into walls, there is certainly a lot more builders can do to help them dry out and minimize damage when they do get wet. By adding drainage capabilities to a solid mix of water resistance, durability and permeability, todays newest drainable housewrap products are a terrific way to address this challenge.

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New Drainable Housewrap Provides Integrative Solution for Moisture Management - Builder Magazine

The Public Works and Facilities Committee discussed four major topics at Mondays meeting, ranging from short-term issues to a six-year plan of sorts.

In terms of more immediate issues discussed, the first was an amendment to the ADEC low interest loan for the Biosolids Project for $10 million. This loan would provide funding necessary to construct the Biosolids Dryer at the Mendenhall Waste Water Treatment Plant, and brings the total loan amount to $20 million. The loan will be repaid through Waste Water Utility revenues, according to a CBJ memo.

The MTP produces more than 5,300 tons of biosolids broken-down sewage sludge produced for fertilization purposes per year, according to a Powerpoint presented Monday. The loan discussed at the meeting would go toward constructing a new dryer, which evaporates moisture from the biosolids.

Secondly, the committee discussed an appropriation of $142,000 of Jensen-Olson Arboretum revenues from the Jensen-Olson Arboretum fund balance. These funds would be appropriated in two ways, as $127,000 would create the Jensen-Olson Arboretum Residence Deferred Maintenance Capital Improvement Program (CIP), and $15,000 would go to the Jenson-Olson Arboretum Parking & Conservatory CIP.

The Deferred Maintenance CIP would fund repairs to the residence in an attempt to prevent further structural damage from moisture to the building, including replacement of floor and wall framing, window, exterior siding and the installation of a ventilation fan. The funds headed to the Parking & Conservatory CIP would supplement funding for a new gravel parking lot for the arboretum.

The committee also discussed the usage of the Channel Vista Drive/Egan Drive Bike Path as an ambulance access route in the event of traffic stoppage on the Egan Drive Retaining Wall section of the highway. The CBJ will coordinate with the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities in the event of a traffic backup. Those on the committee acknowledged that this scenario is rare, but wanted to be prepared to use the path if the situation does arise.

Earlier this month, representatives from multiple local organizations met at Channel Vista Drive to examine the viability of the plan and see if an ambulance could successfully navigate the path. During the test, an ambulance made it through without incident, traversing the entirety of the path for its entire length from Channel Vista Drive to the Hospital Drive intersection. If necessary, the ambulance could also exit earlier in the route, reaching Egan at the Salmon Creek Reservoir exit/entrance.

The long-term topic at the meeting was the preliminary CIP for the fiscal years 2018 through 2023. The CIP serves as a strategic plan, developed by the CBJ Assembly, its boards and commissions, CBJ staff and the citizens of CBJ. The plan isnt set in stone, but establishes a series of long-term goals and budgetary estimations that will be approved by the Assembly as funding is secured. The committee reviewed the plan during Mondays meeting.

The committee is set to meet March 20, though due to multiple committee members possibly being absent that date, theres a possibility the next meeting wont be until April.

Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.

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City committee talks arboretum money, emergency route, sewage, future budget - Juneau Empire (subscription)