EleBlog

28 Sep, 2009

I am sick and frustrated about the way the world of CFL advocates is going about its "business" of forcing people to make lighting choices that suck.

Please read this, tip #6 of "Top 12 Tips for Energy Efficient Lighting Design," posted to the Lowes For Pros website:


Now, I don't know Kelley Cunningham. But if you read the sentence as written, it says: "reducing the chance of reverting back to incandescents."

In other words, let's arrange the lighting installation in someone's house -- someone's HOUSE, where they live with their family and spend their time off from work, most likely -- so that they can't have the kind of lighting they might want after trying CFLs.

Screw the customers! They might want incandescents, but we're going to force CFLs down their throat!!!

I really hate this. You might (maybe) ask -- "How is this accomplished?" It's accomplished with something called GU-24, a lamp base for CFLs. If one installs a lighting fixture with that base, it will be impossible (short of a rewiring job) for someone to screw in an incandescent if he/she/they are unhappy with the kind of light provided by CFLs.

I really, really hate this kind of thinking. If you pay attention to the CFL issue and CFL advocates, you see it all of the time.

28 Sep, 2009

See this New Mexico Business Weekly feature for the tale of Visible Light Solar Technologies -- which "emerged from stealth mode on June 17 for a nationwide launch of its inaugural product line." The thing "combines solar PV collectors with LED lamps." 

28 Sep, 2009

Assume nothing.

Example: I might assume that "everyone" knows about aluminum wiring in older homes. But a local (California) newspaper columnist got a question recently about aluminum wiring which reveals (in the question) that at least one older electrician might not be as familiar with aluminum-wiring issues as . . . well, as I assume everyone in the electrical industry already is.

28 Sep, 2009

CE Pro (back in May) ran a feature with the headline that appears on this item, written by Kevin Mikelonis, owner of Process Dealer Services Group ("a Lutron Homeworks authorized programmer"). It's a 2,500-word "case study" of sorts, starting with a phone call "from an out-of-state electrical contractor named Ed asking rather desperately for help" on a lighting control installation that was going wrong.

While the EC involved (apparently) had little or nothing to do with the way the control system was programmed, the control program was somehow blown up. Mikelonis wrote: "Within this program, there were 75 different rooms and 250 lighting loads named. This is like having 250 tools in 75 separate drawers of a large toolbox!"

28 Sep, 2009

A July 17 feature in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch carried the headline "Electrician Proves Green Jobs Exist." Chris DeMoor, an IBEW electrician (a 38-year-old father of six)  -- an an employee of a pretty good company, Guarantee Electrical -- provided a pretty good quote, which you'll find in the middle of the 730-word article:

"I believe I'm going to learn until the day I die . . . we can either fear technology or we can figure it out." The article includes a discussion of his work on a solar installation on the campus of Emerson Electric, an industry manufacturer -- where a 550-panel solar PV installation recently was put in place.

27 Sep, 2009

A 1,375-word CE Pro magazine article -- "Experts Answer Your Questions: STRUCTURED WIRING" -- includes answers from Greg Simmons of Eagle Sentry and Ian Hendler of Leviton. Hendler, director of business development for the company, is the grandson of Harold Leviton(!). Here's a Q and an A from Hendler on fiber optics, sorta --

27 Sep, 2009

Lots of folks say -- and are betting -- that the globe (and the U.S.) have entered a Recovery. The stock market is up a huge 60%. Some analysts are saying, out-and-out, we're in a bull market (as opposed to a fierce bear-market rally).

I don't buy a bit of that. David Rosenberg, the former Merrill Lynch analyst (now back in his native Canada at a firm called Gluskin Sheff), notes that 100% of global GDP growth in 2009 is coming from government money-printing -- and that will be followed by an "at least 80%" GDP growth figure from governments in 2010.

Here's another thing to look at -- a headline from a U.K newspaper that reads: "Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession anchored just east of Singapore."

You may have encountered this one before (it ran 9/16 and has made the rounds of some Internet places, especially where "bears" hang out). I'm not sure I've seen the piece reflected in a U.S. newspaper, magazine, or news website.

27 Sep, 2009

GreenSource is a magazine from McGraw-Hill on, well, green construction. The Jan/Feb 09 issue included a lengthy (7 pages, with a lot of pix) article on "Prefabrication's Green Promise." It's now findable, free -- here.

NOTE if you go -- the site has spread this article over SIX pages, so to see the whole thing, you'll have to click away.

27 Sep, 2009

See this story (dug up from more than 1 year ago) for info on Prefab homes from Toyota -- yes, the car company. This seems to combine "green" and residential construction, doesn't it?

27 Sep, 2009

McGraw-Hill's roundup of the $ value of construction starts shows August up 2% from July. As regular visitors might remember, the EleBlog likes to look at the UNadjusted year-to-date data, which (if you click thru) is found on the very bottom of the web page. This is even UGLIER than the Reed data, isn't it?

YEAR-TO-DATE CONSTRUCTION STARTS
Unadjusted Totals, In Millions of Dollars

	8 Mo. 2009	8 Mo. 2008	% Change
Nonresidential Building	$110,465	$175,885	-37
Residential Building	73,015	122,343	-40
Nonbuilding Construction	91,322	111,785	-18
Total Construction	$274,802	$410,013	-33

27 Sep, 2009

The AIA's "work on the boards" number for August was 41.7. The "50" level is the dividing line between an expanding market and one that isn't. Here's the commentary that seems relevant:


Note that a slight blip up a short while ago made a lot of headlines. It wasn't much, and now it's been undermined by reality. If you click thru, be sure to page down to the graphic "Commercial/Industrial Projects Have Been Hardest Hit By Credit Market Problems." It's ugly.

27 Sep, 2009

Reed Construction Data puts August construction starts UP 9.2% (vs. July) -- SEE NEWSLETTER (which will be up at that URL until they post the next one).

I pay attention to the year-to-date figures, which offer 09 v. 08 comparisons


From Jim Haughey, economist, on the Heavy Engineering market -- "The stimulus-funded component will likely expand a little further and remain high for several more quarters, but the rest of the heavy market will be declining well into next year. This is the consequence of a huge surplus in private facility capacity and the weakest public budgets in several decades."

Note that if you page thru to page 2 of the report, Commercial construction (one big component of Non-Res) is down 30.8% year-over-year. Retail (the largest single piece) is down 40%; hotel/motel is down 54.6%; and private office is down 39%.

21 Sep, 2009

I realized I was way behind on "social media" when I learned that the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem -- which is what's left of a demolition accomplished by the Romans some 1,940 years ago -- is available on TWITTER.

I need to catch up! I'm a lot younger than that . . . most of the time.

21 Sep, 2009

A 7/24/09 article in the Sarnia Observer (which is in Ontario, Canada) -- which I can't link to online -- noted this:

"Local electrical contractors enrolled in the progrma [Power Savings Blitz, funded by the Ontario Power Authority] go out to small business, do an assessment, and submit it to Bluewater Power, the local municipally owned electricity distributor. If the assessment is approved, the program will pay up to $1,000 for upgrades the contractor carries out for the business.

"That can include upgrading lighting with new fluorescent equipment, putting in LED exit signs, and other improvements."

Quote from the guy at Bluewater; "There's no real catch to it. It's just a thousand bucks."

Now, this is a program that will put money and people to work in a big hurry -- and save money (and energy) on down the line. It seems neat, clean, fast, and green!

21 Sep, 2009

EMCOR's management system is praised in an article from Gulf Construction -- as in the gulf across the world, not the one in the Southeast. It's about EMCOR's Facilities Services Group, not the electrical piece of the company. Here's a quote from the PIECE:

“This is a bespoke system which enables us to configure the exact requirements of any individual project – from grass management in stadiums to a/c and water systems to HR tools and health services; we even have a concierge service with one project – it’s a totally integrated service.

"Where it gets really exciting though and what’s so special about this project in KSA, is that the entire system is linked into portable devices carried by our staff on the ground, completely eliminating the paper trail in favour of efficiency and accuracy where everything can be eliminated, saving time and costs.”

Note that I provided the link to an article on an EMCOR-ish site, rather than to the original. My computer warned me away from the Gulf Construction site, based on some kind of web disease that site wants to give it.

21 Sep, 2009

CE Pro rounded up the "10 WORST WIRING JOBS" and put them in a slideshow.

It's worth your time. This is some ugly stuff!

21 Sep, 2009

Some general impressions that may or may not have made it into the TEDMAG blogs from the NECA Show:

1 -- NECA's members turned out in bigger numbers for Seattle 2009 than they did for Seattle 2000. I'm not sure why, but here are some ideas.


That's it. I can't figure it out otherwise.

2 -- NECA contractors seemed in a pretty good mood for much of the show; I saw this for myself, and I heard it from others. Why? Remember that NECA's members are contractors who employ UNION electricians. They are in the best position to bid on, get, and perform work for the federal government and state/local governments (thanks to Davis-Bacon laws). And what's the only booming sector right now, in the U.S. economy? GOVERNMENT.

3 -- As noted in one of the blog entries on TEDMAG, there was a lot of green at this event. Folks are starting to understand that green is BIG for people in the electrical sector, and it's going to be bigger. In fact, as the result of listening to a number of greenish presentations, I came to the conclusion that -- perhaps -- the electrical construction sector (and maybe the mechanical/HVAC contractors, too) will be exempt from the 2-3-5 years of horrid construction volumes that are probably coming at us.

4 -- There were a lot of exhibitors. Notably, some of the larger companies took smaller booths for this show. But according to a reliable source, some of them have already corrected that error for the Chicago show (2010) -- enlarging their booths from this year to next. The fact is, the amount of $ charged by NECA (or any other show sponsor) for each 10x10 booth space is NOT the major cost of exhibiting. I think it's on the order of $3,000 for a 10x10 (or thereabouts) -- so to go from a 10 x 20 to a 30 x 30 is to go from about $6K to about $18K. That's not a big upshift in investment to reach big electrical contractors who are thriving in government and looking to grow in green.

No, the big costs are: (a) putting stuff in the booth; (b) on-site costs at the convention center (labor, renting equipment); (c) flying your people in to staff the booth; and (d) feeding and entertaining your people and guests at the show. If you take a bigger booth,these costs go up much more than $12K. However, it might be worth it. See this 2001 column -- it's very long -- that I wrote about trade shows, accessible via the Wayback Machine. I re-read it recently; 8 years later, I still can't disagree with me!

5 -- I like to wander trade shows -- just walk around with a destination or attention to the time -- and watch people talk to each other. What I see is IDEAS being exchanged. An electrical product isn't a product to a contractor, it's a piece of his armament . . . something that the contractor can use to better satisfy a customer. That goes even more for a tool or piece of equipment the contractor's workforce can use on a job -- it's not a tool, it's a way to get the workers to be more productive with less physical stress. The attendees who walk thru such an event and have their thinking caps on go home with a head full of ideas. I think this applies not just to the NECA Show, but to any trade show or conference. That's why I plan to attend a one-day event on social media -- for writers -- in the next few weeks.

I'm precisely the same as the contractors attending NECA -- a guy who needs to expose himself to ideas in order to, maybe, make more money or at least better serve my customers. I believe my understanding on this issue is perfect!

21 Sep, 2009

I did blog daily from The NECA Show (and convention), held last week in Seattle. Four posts:

1 -- energy audits, NECA's social networking, Graybar on data centers, Gexpro on Green, and a brief personal note. HERE.

2 -- HERE. Some pictures. Green presentations, general. Green Advantage (???). Energy roadmap (Tom Glavinich). Solar (and training).

3 -- Short Day 3 of the event -- Solar-in-a-Box, tips on social networking for contractors, best new product for distributors, Diogen & Diogenes. Plus, the best (in my opinion) for last -- productivity ideas form Legrand.

4 -- WRAP-UP -- more photos (from a lousy photographer, me).

21 Sep, 2009

Sorry about the huge gap in posts. I've been doing 3 things:

a. Looking around, trying to figure out how to update this blog. I'm still working on that.

b. Trying to figure out "Social" media, or Web. 2.0, or whatever you want to call LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter. Yeah, I'm still working on THAT.

c. Figuring out how to make up for the loss of a major client, which dates back to February. As I'm the one who keeps saying we're really in a Depression (albeit a different sort than the one of the 1930s), I'm not shocked that I lost about 1/3rd of my business. However, it's one thing to deal reasonably with the shock, and quite another to make up for the loss of income (i.e., cut expenses).

I apologize that my personal ignorance, difficulties, and slowness have led to a huge posting gap in this blog.