It’s no secret that the construction industry produces a lot of waste. When you do any kind of demolition as part of your business, you’re much more likely to be taking tons of the debris to the landfill. If you’re starting to feel like this is just a part of your business, there may be another way. Here’s how you can evaluate your company’s waste production, with a few ways you can cut down on the excess.

Measure Waste Production
Figuring out how much you’re sending to the landfill might be easy or difficult, depending on the work you do and how you dispose of waste. Take a few months or even a year’s worth of projects and evaluate how much waste you create. Since about 90 percent of construction waste is through demolition, the amount of debris you’re dealing with will be much higher if you’re taking down buildings as well as creating new. Consider the mass and weight of the waste you get from a project. If it’s materials you bought, see how much of your purchase becomes waste. This will help you figure out how to cut back.

Consider Ways to Cut Back
Efficient construction processes are good for virtually everyone. When you look at how you waste time, energy or materials, you have an opportunity to cut down on unnecessary expenditures. You might be obtaining materials from a source that uses much more packaging. You could be cutting or shaping materials in a way that creates too many leftovers you can’t use. Cutting down on the supplies you buy because you’re using them better saves you money and space in the landfill.

Make Sustainability a Priority
The best product is one that lasts longer without needing to be demolished or rebuilt. While using sustainable materials is an important part of construction, sustainable construction is another way to keep debris out of the landfill. Once a building is a few decades old, experts have to evaluate the benefit of keeping the building upright compared to replacing it with something better, safer or more efficient. If you look at these aspects in your construction practices, you can consider adding new approaches that improve them. You may be able to build something that will last decades longer without needing complicated or expensive retrofits.

Look for Recycling Options
Reclaimed wood sounds like a fashion trend for high-end homeowners, but reuse is a good practice for most fields in construction. In many cases, you can take materials you remove and sell or donate them to organizations that repurpose them. There are rules for the ways that you can recycle debris, as well as the types of materials. For example, people can recycle concrete as long as it doesn’t have other elements like wood, paper or trash. Look for recycling centers near the jobsite to make transport that much easier.

Use Recycled Materials
For the greatest efficiency, you may be able to recycle and reuse some products while you are still on the jobsite. Concrete has been a nightmare for decades because it’s heavy, bulky and hard to reuse. Yet, people are finding new ways to work with it. With the right equipment, you can pulverize concrete into pieces that you can use as road base or to make new concrete. This dramatically cuts down on your material purchases and the energy spent shipping them. Since materials like wood and metal already have healthy markets for recycling, you can also look for supply companies that sell recycled materials.

Dealing with waste is just one part of running a contracting business. To explore our courses and find the construction field that’s right for you, contact CSLS today!

Construction workers need to drink water throughout the day for their health and ability to do their jobs well. The problems are that there are so many ways this can go wrong on a construction site. You expect the taps to be working, only to learn that they’ve been stopped by another process on the jobsite. You bring in water and it gets contaminated by accident. Keeping drinking water safe is important, but sometimes easy to forget. Here are a few tips to make sure that you and your employees have safe drinking water wherever you are.

OSHA’s Standards for Drinking Water on a Construction Site
The way that people get water while they’re working in construction has some conditions. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says that workers need water that is:

• potable (i.e. safe for consumption)
• in a container with a lid that can be sealed tightly
• held in a container that is not used for anything else
• dispensed through a tap, not dipped

This might be easy to meet if you are working on a site with existing construction and functioning taps. If you’re going to use a cooler with a tap and have your employees use disposable cups, you must provide a sanitary place to keep the unused cups and dispose of the used ones.

How to Protect Access to Drinking Water Onsite
Since people can easily get sick or even die without water, you have to treat it like you would any other gear you bring to protect yourself. This means you must think about it in advance and have a plan in mind. For each aspect of the project, answer the following questions:

• How will you get water each day?
• How easy is it for your workers to get water when they need it?
• What happens if that access changes?

Workers may have different levels of availability depending on the job they’re doing. If anyone has limited access, such as having to walk a long distance or regularly interrupt their work, you might need to think of an alternative.

Providing Backup Water Sources in an Emergency
There are times when you’ll forget to bring the water, or there is some reason that you can’t use the water onsite. For example, the city of Poway recently had to put homes and businesses on a boil order because of backflow into the water supply from recent storms. If something like this happens to you, you will need to have a backup. Keeping a spare supply of water in your vehicle might be all you need. Locating alternative sources of water nearby, even at a local convenience store or grocery, also may be able to provide for you and your workers until you come up with a Plan B.

Water Consumption Recommendations for Construction Workers

Anyone in any job needs to drink about 64 ounces of water per day. Positions that require a lot of heavy labor or working outside in the hot sun usually need more. For example, if you’re working in the Mojave Desert and it’s 115 degrees outside, your workers may need to drink as much as four cups of water per hour that they are operating outside. In this case, you will need to keep a supply of fresh, cool water and encourage everyone to drink water several times per hour. People who are engaged in work might not think to drink until they are extremely thirsty, but this can be dangerous in hot weather.

Safe access to drinking water is a cornerstone of your business’s ability to function. Without it, everyone’s productivity may decline sharply. To learn more about ways you can run a contracting business, contact CSLS today!

The construction industry has been booming ever since the world started to rebound after the Great Recession. The year 2020 brings several changes that contractors should keep in mind while they grow their businesses. With a greater emphasis on technology, the widespread acceptance of the design-build approach, and an increasing importance of hiring skilled labor, you can see that there are new avenues of the market to explore or continue developing.

1. Labor Shortage Continues
   As members of the baby boomer generation continue to retire from construction, you’ll continue to see labor shortages particularly in expert fields. The economic crash of the late 2000s drove millions of workers out of the construction industry in search of more reliable jobs. Ten years later, those numbers still haven’t recovered. Companies will try to meet their needs by working to secure contracts with a smaller pool, usually in the form of higher pay and increased benefits. They will also look for ways to bypass certain types of labor they can’t secure, such as the use of drones or other technology.

2. Modular Construction Increases
   In the name of efficiency, modular construction will likely keep increasing in popularity. Businesses are finding that they can complete projects earlier and at a lower cost if they can produce certain aspects of the building offsite. This allows them to control the conditions and often create more usable products in the same amount of time. Less work also makes it easier to work with a limited labor pool. Improvements to modular construction to make the buildings competitive with site-built construction will help to persuade more people to give it a try.

3. New Construction Slows
   When the economy started to rebound, this led to a flood of new construction projects. The smaller pool of qualified workers and construction businesses meant that some regions saw projects booked years out. In certain parts of California, this might continue for some time. Otherwise, you can plan on a gradual slowdown of new starts in residential and commercial construction. This is mostly tied to a decrease in demand, but also relates to a rise in tariffs and trade disputes with countries that provide a large amount of manufacturing.

4. Technology Takes Prominence
   The use of technology has been one of the best ways that contracting businesses can get work done without having to track down experts who are retiring in droves. Even if you weren’t an early adopter of drones, AI or automation, there’s good reason to get in now. At this time, technology is rapidly expanding in various construction fields but also changing quickly. This means that you’re not likely to see tools and devices taking over jobs as much as enhancing your work or making it more efficient. Getting on board now may make the difference between staying current with your competition or falling behind.

5. Design-Build Is Here to Stay
   Involving contractors in the design stages of a project has been the norm in some construction fields for years. At the higher levels, particularly for government-funded projects, people have been slower to accept an approach that combines the design and bidding parts of the process. This is changing, as more organizations realize that they can save a lot of time on a project and promote greater accuracy by getting the contractors who will do the work on board at the beginning.

The year 2020 is going to be an exciting year for the construction industry, full of opportunities for contractors with the right skills and experience. To start building your career as a licensed contractor, visit CSLS today!

It happened in New York, and it could happen here in California. Dozens of inspectors went to various construction sites and found tens of thousands of violations. Many of them were related to safe practices and working conditions. Although you’re not likely to encounter an unexpected inspection during the course of your project, there’s good reason to be prepared. Here’s how you can ensure that everything is in order.

What Are Common Construction Violations?
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) keeps a list of the most common violations each year. Many of them, like communication about hazards and respiratory protection, apply to a variety of industries. For construction in particular, fall protection, scaffolding and ladders top the list. So besides making sure you’ve always got the right building permits for the project, safety needs to be your first priority when it comes to avoiding violations.

Who Can File a Safety Complaint?
Although contractors in New York were surprised by these unexpected inspections, California contractors need to be prepared at any time. Almost anyone on the jobsite can file a safety complaint to Cal/OSHA. This includes workers and employers. If someone sees a lack of safety procedures or dangerous activities happening at a particular site, they can call Cal/OSHA or email their complaint. The person who files the complaint is kept confidential so that they don’t face retribution.

What Happens if a Worker or Inspector Files a Safety Complaint?
Safety violations happen on occasion. There are a lot of rules to follow and in some cases, workers may not know that what they are doing is incorrect or risky. When someone files a complaint to Cal/OSHA, the department will follow up on the information they receive. If it appears to be accurate, they may issue a citation to the business. In order to clear the citation, businesses must post the citation for three working days or until it is corrected. They also have to submit proof that they fixed it and post that in the work area, as well.

How Can Contracting Businesses Avoid Violations?
In the short-term, there are many things that you can do to avoid having to deal with safety violations. Cal/OSHA publishes a variety of guides for construction businesses to follow. These include:

• learning safety regulations based on the task
• providing personal protective equipment to employees
• posting guidelines in a place that employees can easily access
• reporting serious workplace injuries or deaths as quickly as possible

When implementing a new program, business owners may want to use a safety checklist for each part of the jobsite. Having a site manager or other person in an overseeing capacity complete the checklist will help to confirm that the safe processes are not just understood, but followed consistently.

What Can Businesses Do to Prevent Unsafe Workspaces?
Ultimately, unsafe construction sites tend to be a combination of lack of information, limited availability of safety equipment and minimal incentive to follow the rules. Businesses may be required to send employees to regular safety training, to teach or reinforce safe procedures. Providing time each year for workers to get a refresh helps to ensure that they remember what to do.

Avoiding injury isn’t just about avoiding fines that may come from serious safety violations. As a contractor, you’ll often be as involved in the daily tasks of a project as any of your employees. Attention to safety can help keep you off of Cal/OSHA’s list, but it also protects you personally.

In construction, California businesses are always on show to prove that they provide a safe workplace. When you know what to do, you can avoid injury and violations that slow down your work. To begin building a safe contracting business, visit CSLS today!

Periodic power outages happen. You know that rolling blackouts can be a big problem, particularly during summer and wildfire season. When PG&E is shutting down your jobsite, you’ve got issues you need to solve. Your workday doesn’t stop just because the lights aren’t on, so you must be prepared. These tips help you evaluate your energy needs for your business, with a few solutions you can consider.

Consider Your Power Needs
In order to find the best approaches to take during a power outage, you have to know what you need. Make a list of equipment you use for common projects. Don’t forget to include the tools that you use on a daily basis but may not rely on for regular work, like your smartphone or computer. Take note of the power source for each piece of equipment. For tools and devices that run solely on electricity, figure out how many amps they need. This will help you determine how fast you’ll burn through power running them.

Choose Batteries vs. Fuel-Powered
If the plugs aren’t working and you don’t know when they’ll turn back on, you need some kind of backup. Many construction tools run on fuel, but others can run on batteries. In some cases, you may be able to choose between them. It’s a trick to keep batteries charged, particularly if you can run through them in less than an hour or two. If you pick battery-powered options, you’ll need to find a way to recharge them. If you choose fuel-powered, you’ll need to ensure that you can provide a regular supply of the right kind of fuel. Keep in mind that fuel-powered tools may not need electricity, but they need ventilation if you’re using them indoors.

Find Ways to Recharge
Some aspects of your system simply cannot work without electric power. For that, you may need to invest in a generator. Lots of people buy a generator as an emergency backup but then never learn how to use it. Typically, a generator uses fuel to run an alternator that creates an electrical current that can be converted to energy to run devices that are connected to the right circuits. If you don’t have enough fuel or the right fuel, it’s useless. If you buy a generator that is too small for your needs, you’ll run out of energy and be back where you started. Make sure that you know how to use it and periodically test it to confirm it still meets your needs.

Watch for Planned Outages
They say luck favors the prepared, and this is because having a plan makes all the difference. Planned outages can be extremely frustrating for everyone in the region affected by them. But if you don’t know that they are coming, you may be caught unprepared. When the weather is hot and everyone’s running an air conditioner, get ready for brownouts or rolling blackouts. Keep an eye on the weather forecast, particularly during seasons when big storms are common. If you know about it in advance and can do some work from a safer place, you may save yourself some time and hassle.

Build-in Extra Time
Power outages can cause delays in your project delivery, but they also create other problems. Failing to plan for them and not giving yourself adequate time to complete the project can cause you to take risks that you wouldn’t do otherwise. Being in a hurry is a major cause of workplace injury. For example, if you’re relying on a building’s ventilation system to keep the jobsite safe for you and your employees, you might not think about that system going down during a power outage. You’re more likely to make that mistake when you’re already behind schedule. Instead, build in some padding for problems like this, and you’ll have more room to plan.

Power outages are a part of life in California, but they don’t have to bring your business screeching to a halt. For more tips about getting your contracting business started, visit CSLS today!

Minimizing the use of substances that affect people’s ability to operate construction equipment seems to make sense at the construction site. In reality, it’s a mess of conflicting guidelines. For example, at the federal level, marijuana is still illegal. At the state level, it may be approved for recreational use. This creates a situation that can be tricky to navigate. Zero tolerance used to seem like an easy practice to implement, but it’s not always legal to enforce. Here’s a few things you should consider when setting a policy concerning substance use in your contracting business.

Understand the Law
If you want to know the latest California laws concerning the growth, sale and use of cannabis, you’ve got to check back on a regular basis. The California state government has passed or refined legislation concerning what people are allowed to do with marijuana every year since 2015. At present, adults over age 21 are allowed to produce and consume cannabis products in the state. There are limitations on how, where and when they can do this.

Federal vs. State Regulations
Although many states have relaxed their laws related to the sale or consumption of cannabis, it’s still illegal at the federal level. This is more of an issue of enforcement, depending on who’s calling the shots. For example, the Obama administration directed federal agencies to ease up on enforcing federal drug policies in states that had legalized marijuana for medicinal or adult use. The Trump administration rescinded that in 2018. It remains to be seen how the federal government will take action concerning this conflict in laws.

Medicinal vs. Adult Use
The way you set substance use policies depends greatly on the reason employees might be using it. With recreational use, you’re not obligated to allow people to smoke or consume cannabis products while they’re on the clock. In that way, it’s similar to a policy you might set for alcohol consumption.

Medicinal use is a different matter entirely. Employers are bound by law not to discriminate against employees for health concerns or treatment for conditions. And considering that marijuana may be prescribed to treat conditions ranging from injury to chronic pain and cancer, you could encounter people with a legitimate prescription for medicinal marijuana at any time. This means that you might not legally be able to enforce a zero-tolerance drug policy, even if that seems the easiest path to take. If you’re not sure what to do, consulting a lawyer who specializes in human resources policies may be a worthwhile investment.

Make Safety Paramount
Instead of putting yourself at risk for discrimination, it may be a good time to rethink your substance use policy. In construction, marijuana use for any reason can be a serious risk to life and limb. The National Institute on Drug Abuse notes that workers who test positive for cannabis are more likely to be involved in accidents or receive injuries while on the job. As an employer, you may need to evaluate each situation on a case-by-case basis. It might not make sense to test people for cannabis that they may consume in their off-hours anymore. But you definitely need them sober and attentive while they’re operating heavy machinery or in a dangerous area of the jobsite, for their own safety and yours.

Consider Flexible Job Requirements
If you want to hire an employee who needs to use marijuana in a medicinal context, it may help to consider creating some flexibility in job requirements for all positions. People working in a small business tend to fill several roles at the same time anyway. You can reduce your risk of problems by acknowledging that people may have a legal reason for using cannabis, and helping them find a way to accommodate it. This way, you aren’t putting them, yourself or your projects at risk.

Creating substance use policies that work with the changing times is just one part of running a contracting business. Getting a solid grounding in the various aspects of your field is another. For more information about how our programs can help you get started, contact CSLS today!

You’d never leave the warehouse or jobsite without confirming that the door was locked and security activated. Are you as careful with your electronic devices? Scammers are getting better at finding the weaknesses in people’s workflow, and they may be coming for your contracting business. Officials say that businesses are often the biggest targets for cyberattacks, and that they can seem more real and innocent than you think. Here’s what to watch out for, and a few ways you can protect yourself.

Remember: It’s Easy to Get Scammed
Practically everyone has received an email from a prince offering millions of dollars to anyone willing to give sensitive bank account information. While most people know not to fall for something like this, most modern scams are much less obvious. Scammers look for weaknesses in the system and figure out the most effective ways to exploit them. They’ve spent years getting better at it. This means that when you get an email from a contractor you know asking for your routing number for a wire transfer, it might look entirely legit. As a general rule, you want to assume that many communications like this can be faulty.

Lock Down Your Passwords
If you’re not changing your passwords regularly, or if you’re using the defaults on the devices you buy, you’re putting yourself at risk. You hear about hackers using conventional passwords on smart home technology to break through a home’s security. This is just as easy to do for your security cameras on the jobsite. Good passwords should be:

• long, at least eight and preferably 12 characters
• a combination of numbers, letters and symbols
• different between accounts
• difficult for anyone to guess

Strong passwords are hard to remember. If you’re constantly forgetting them, or choosing easy ones so you don’t, it’s time to get a password manager.

Never Share Confidential Information Over Phone or Email
People expect scams to look over-the-top fake because they assume scammers are sending it to hundreds of thousands of people. At the business level, identity thieves only need to get one hit to get a huge payout. This encourages them to make it as personal and realistic as possible, knowing that you’ll be more likely to take the bait if there’s a real person on the other end. Just like you wouldn’t believe someone making a prank phone call, you should treat all unexpected communications with suspicion. That texter can’t fix your student loans, your bank would never email you to ask for your password, and the IRS doesn’t make phone calls.

Use Multiple Means of Verification
Phishing scams, where the person uses some correct information about you to try to get more, are so slick these days you might not even see it. Sure, you might think that you should log into your business bank account to make sure the email is correct, but how do you get there? Clicking on the link in the email is how they get you. Instead, find the contact information for the institution through their regular website or from an official communication like a bank statement. As an added layer of protection, use a different device to verify it. If your phone or computer is already compromised, using the same machine might still put you at risk.

Watch What You Download
When a random website asks you to download something, you may already know not to do so. What happens if you get an email from someone on your team asking you to review documents in a ZIP file? This is where being a little more suspicious comes in handy. Scammers hide ransomware and malware in certain types of files that seem reasonable and related to your business. If you download them, they’ll often create hours or days of trouble for you. When you’re not expecting the files, don’t click on them. And if you are, install anti-virus software to help identify problems.

Keeping your business secure is getting harder and harder, especially in the construction field. By taking this advice, you can protect your information and your money. To discover the benefits of a career in construction, visit CSLS today!

When you first start your contracting business, you might be going it alone. Yet, it’s often impossible for people to do all the work to keep a business running on their own. You’ll need a team, and sometimes it’s hard to decide which jobs can be filled by you and which ones require support. Here’s the basic components of the team you’ll want to have for your contracting business.

Marketing and Sales
To a certain extent, it’s true that you can build a business based on word of mouth. In other words, pick up a few happy clients and they’ll let other people know to hire you for their own projects. However, construction can be a competitive industry, with lots of small businesses you’ve got to compete with to get a client’s contract. This is where brand management comes in. Knowing how to find your target demographic and the best ways to secure their business takes experience that you might not have. A sales and marketing manager can handle leads, but also advertise your services in the right places.

Cash Flow Management
Every business needs a person who can collect payments, handle the bills and maintain the budgets. When you first start your business, this person will often be you. However, in order to make that work, you’ve got to be reasonably good with numbers. This is an administrative task that will bring your business crashing to a halt if you forget to take care of it, though. If you’re too busy completing projects to make this a priority, you’ll need an administrative support person to keep track of the general cash flow of the business.

Accounting and Payroll
Although handling the finances for the business seems like it could easily be done by one person, this usually isn’t true. There’s a reason many businesses outsource their tax accounting and payroll work to a service or accountant. If you get it wrong, you may be held legally liable for mistakes. There are lots of rules you have to follow to pay your employees and take care of your taxes each year, and they can be tricky to understand or remember. Paying a service to handle it for you ensures that everyone gets paid on time, including you and the IRS.

Skilled Workers
Contracting businesses that serve homeowners for relatively minor tasks may be able to get by with just one person doing the work. However, it’s worth considering a second person, if you have enough work available and you can pay them reliably. When all the work depends on you, you’re on the hook to get the job done around the clock and in any kind of condition. Failure to meet the terms of the project can make it harder for you to secure clients in the future. Adding a skilled worker who can duplicate most of the work you do can improve your efficiency and provide a cushion for when you need to focus on administrative tasks.

Subcontractors
Although subcontractors aren’t technically a part of your business, many of the projects you do wouldn’t succeed without them. You’ll hire subcontractors to do the jobs that require skills you don’t have, or to fill roles that you cannot do simultaneously. There are rules for the way the state allows you to classify contractors compared to employees, so you want to make sure you’re doing it correctly. A reliable subcontractor who does good work is worth their weight in gold. They make it easy to take on more-complicated projects, without you having to provide regular work for them.

Being an independent contractor feels like a business of one, but it often takes a team to make it a success. Understanding the different roles your business needs will help you build a fulfilling career. To get started, visit CSLS today!