Articles
Materials, selection & how we build
Notes from the field on how we build: project guidance, material comparisons, and the occasional how-to for the trade.
Fourth-quarter planning: getting next year's build ready to start
Every December we get the same call from an owner whose board just approved a project for the coming year, and the question is always whether it can break grou…
Read the article →Planning a Texas construction schedule around winter freeze delays
The forecast said a low of twenty-six for two nights, and the pour scheduled for that Thursday moved to the following Monday. Nobody on the site was surprised…
Read the article →Five ways to pull a construction finish date forward
A hotel owner once told us the soft opening had moved up six weeks because the brand's marketing calendar had moved. The drawings had not changed. The building…
Read the article →Getting your business ready before construction starts
The day the dumpster arrives is a bad day to find out the point-of-sale system runs through a closet on the demolition plan. We have watched it happen. The bui…
Read the article →Six early warnings that a construction schedule is slipping
A missed opening date is never the first sign of a schedule problem. It is the last one. By the time the date moves on paper, the job has usually been drifting…
Read the article →How a tight labor market moves your construction schedule
The electrician who told us he could start on the fourth called on the second to say the seventh, and the seventh became the fourteenth. Nothing was wrong with…
Read the article →Where material cost swings actually hit a construction budget
The lumber quote we priced a framing package on in the spring was not the lumber quote we bought at in the fall. The difference on that one order was larger th…
Read the article →What a gym or fitness studio build-out costs: the real drivers
The landlord's slab was fine for the retail tenant who left. It was not fine for a platform where members would drop three hundred pounds from shoulder height…
Read the article →Auto dealership build and renovation costs: what sets the number
The manufacturer's image manual is the first document we ask for on a dealership job, before the survey and before the drawings. It tells us the showroom glass…
Read the article →Self-storage construction costs: what moves the cost per square foot
Two self-storage projects can sit on the same road, rent to the same neighborhood and cost half again as much per square foot as each other, and the difference…
Read the article →Church and worship facility construction costs in Texas
Most congregations come to us with the same first question, and the building committee usually asks it before the architect has drawn the sanctuary. The honest…
Read the article →Hotel PIP renovations: how brand compliance shapes the job
A hotel owner opened a PIP on the hood of a truck in our parking lot and pointed at the completion date on the last page. That date, set by the brand, was the…
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